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THE  RISE   OF  SILAS  LAPHAM 


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THE  RISE  OF   SILAS   LAPHAM. 
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THE 


EISE    OF    SILAS    LAPHAM 


BY 


WILLIAM    D.   HOWELLS 

AUTHOR  OF  "A  MODERN  INSTANCE,"  "  A  WOMAN'S  REASON,"  ETC. 


BOSTON 

TICKNOR    AND     COMPANY 
1885 


Copyright,  1884, 
BY  WILLIAM  D.  Ho  WELLS. 


All  rights  reserved. 


Vmbrnilp  $re*»: 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 


WHEN  Bartley  Hubbard  went  to  interview  Silas 
Lapham  for  the  "  Solid  Men  of  Boston  "  series,  which 
he  undertook  to  finish  up  in  The  Events,  after  he 
replaced  their  original  projector  on  that  newspaper, 
Lapham  received  him  in  his  private  office  by  previous 
appointment. 

"  Walk  right  in  !"  he  called  out  to  the  journalist, 
whom  he  caught  sight  of  through  the  door  of  the 
counting-room. 

He  did  not  rise  from  the  desk  at  which  he  was 
writing,  but  he  gave  Bartley  his  left  hand  for  welcome, 
and  he  rolled  his  large  head  in  the  direction  of  a 
vacant  chair.  "  Sit  down  !  I  '11  be  with  you  in  just 
half  a  minute." 

"  Take  your  time,"  said  Bartley,  with  the  ease  he 
instantly  felt.  "  I  'm  in  no  hurry."  He  took  a  note 
book  from  his  pocket,  laid  it  on  his  knee,  and  began 
to  sharpen  a  pencil. 

"  There  ! "  Lapham  pounded  with  his  great  hairy 
fist  on  the  envelope  he  had  been  addressing. 


THE  RISE  OF 

"  William  ! "  he  called  out,  and  he  handed  the  letter 
to  a  boy  \vho  came  to  get  it.  "  I  want  that  to  go 
right  away.  Well,  sir,"  he  continued,  wheeling 
round  in  his  leather-cushioned  swivel-chair,  and 
facing  Bartley,  seated  so  near  that  their  knees  almost 
touched,  "  so  you  want  my  life,  death,  and  Christian 
sufferings,  do  you,  young  man  1 " 

"  That 's  what  I  'm  after,"  said  Bartley.  "  Your 
money  or  your  life." 

"  I  guess  you  wouldn't  want  my  life  without  the 
money,"  said  Lapham,  as  if  he  were  willing  to  pro 
long  these  moments  of  preparation. 

"Take  'em  both,"  Bartley  suggested.  "Don't 
want  your  money  without  your  life,  if  you  come  to 
that.  But  you  're  just  one  million  times  more  inter 
esting  to  the  public  than  if  you  hadn't  a  dollar  ;  and 
you  know  that  as  well  as  I  do,  Mr.  Lapham.  There 's 
no  use  beating  about  the  bush." 

"  No,"  said  Lapham,  somewhat  absently.  He  put 
out  his  huge  foot  and  pushed  the  ground-glass  door 
shut  between  his  little  den  and  the  book-keepers,  in 
their  larger  den  outside. 

"  In  personal  appearance,"  wrote  Bartley  in  the 
sketch  for  which  he  now  studied  his  subject,  while 
he  waited  patiently  for  him  to  continue,  "  Silas 
Lapham  is  a  fine  type  of  the  successful  American. 
He  has  a  square,  bold  chin,  only  partially  concealed 
by  the  short  reddish-grey  beard,  growing  to  the 
edges  of  his  firmly  closing  lips.  His  nose  is  short 
and  straight ;  his  forehead  good,  but  broad  rather 
than  high  ;  his  eyes  blue,  and  with  a  light  in  them 


SILAS  LAPFAM.  3 

that  is  kindly  or  sharp  according  to  his  mood.  He 
is  of  medium  height,  and  fills  an  average  arm-chair 
with  a  solid  bulk,  which  on  the  day  of  our  interview 
was  unpretentiously  clad  in  a  business  suit  of  blue 
serge.  His  head  droops  somewhat  from  a  short 
neck,  which  does  not  trouble  itself  to  rise  far  from 
a  pair  of  massive  shoulders." 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  know  just  where  you  want  me 
to  begin,"  said  Lapham. 

"  Might  begin  with  your  birth ;  that 's  where  most 
of  us  begin,"  replied  Bartley. 

A  gleam  of  humorous  appreciation  shot  .into 
Lapham's  blue  eyes. 

"  I  didn't  know  whether  you  wanted  me  to  go 
quite  so  far  back  as  that,"  he  said.  "  But  there  's  no 
disgrace  in  having  been  born,  and  I  was  born  in  the 
State  of  Vermont,  pretty  well  up  under  the  Canada 
line — so  well  up,  in  fact,  that  I  came  very  near 
being  an  adoptive  citizen ;  for  I  was  bound  to  be  an 
American  of  some  sort,  from  the  word  Go  !  That 
was  about— well,  let  me  see  ! — pretty  near  sixty 
years  ago  :  this  is  '75,  and  that  was  '20.  Well,  say 
I  'm  fifty-five  years  old  ;  and  I  Ve  lived  'em,  too  ;  not 
an  hour  of  waste  time  about  me,  anywheres  !  I  was 
born  on  a  farm,  and " 

"  Worked  in  the  fields  summers  and  went  to  school 
Avinters  :  regulation  thing  1 "  Bartley  cut  in. 

"Regulation  thing,"  said  Lapham,  accepting  this 
irreverent  version  of  his  history  somewhat  dryly. 

"  Parents  poor,  of  course,"  suggested  the  journalist. 
"  Any  barefoot  business  ]  Early  deprivations  of  any 


4  THE  RISE  OF 

kind,  that  would  encourage  the  youthful  reader  to 
go  and  do  likewise  1  Orphan  myself,  you  know," 
said  Bartley,  with  a  smile  of  cynical  good-comradery. 

Lapham  looked  at  him  silently,  and  then  said  with 
quiet  self-respect,  "  I  guess  if  you  see  these  things  as 
a  joke,  my  life  won't  interest  you." 

"  Oh  yes,  it  will,"  returned  Bartley,  unabashed. 
"  You  '11  see  ;  it  '11  come  out  all  right."  And  in  fact 
it  did  so,  in  the  interview  which  Bartley  printed. 

"  Mr.  Lapham,"  he  wrote,  "  passed  rapidly  over  the 
story  of  his  early  life,  its  poverty  and  its  hardships, 
sweetened,  however,  by  the  recollections  of  a  devoted 
mother,  and  a  father  who,  if  somewhat  her  inferior 
in  education,  was  no  less  ambitious  for  the  advance 
ment  of  his  children.  They  were  quiet,  unpretentious 
people,  religious,  after  the  fashion  of  that  time,  and 
of  sterling  morality,  and  they  taught  their  children 
the  simple  virtues  of  the  Old  Testament  and  Poor 
Richard's  Almanac." 

Bartley  could  not  deny  himself  this  gibe  ;  but  lie 
trusted  to  Lapham's  unliterary  habit  of  mind  for  his 
security  in  making  it,  and  most  other  people  would 
consider  it  sincere  reporter's  rhetoric. 

"  You  know,  "  he  explained  to  Lapham,  "that  we 
have  to  look  at  all  these  facts  as  material,  and  we 
get  the  habit  of  classifying  them.  Sometimes  a 
leading  question  will  draw  out  a  whole  line  of  facts 
that  a  man  himself  would  never  think  of."  He 
went  on  to  put  several  queries,  and  it  was  from 
Lapham's  answers  that  he  generalised  the  history  of 
his  childhood.  "  Mr.  Lapham,  although  he  did  not 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  5 

dwell  on  his  boyish  trials  and  struggles,  spoke  of 
them  with  deep  feeling  and  an  abiding  sense  of  their 
reality."  This  was  what  he  added  in  the  interview, 
and  by  the  time  he  had  got  Lapham  past  the  period 
where  risen  Americans  are  all  pathetically  alike  in 
their  narrow  circumstances,  their  sufferings,  and 
their  aspirations,  he  had  beguiled  him  into  forget- 
fulness  of  the  check  he  had  received,  and  had  him 
talking  again  in  perfect  enjoyment  of  his  autobio 
graphy. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Lapham,  in  a  strain  which  Bartley 
was  careful  not  to  interrupt  again,  "  a  man  never 
sees  all  that  his  mother  has  been  to  him  till  it 's  too 
late  to  let  her  know  that  he  sees  it.  Why,  my 

mother "  he  stopped.     "  It  gives  me  a  lump  in 

the  throat,"  he  said  apologetically,  with  an  attempt 
at  a  laugh.  Then  he  went  on :  "  She  was  a  little, 
frail  thing,  not  bigger  than  a  good-sized  intermediate 
school-girl ;  but  she  did  the  whole  work  of  a  family 
of  boys,  and  boarded  the  hired  men  besides.  She 
cooked,  swept,  washed,  ironed,  made  and  mended 
from  daylight  till  dark — and  from  dark  till  daylight, 
I  was  going  to  say ;  for  I  don't  know  how  she  got 
any  time  for  sleep.  But  I  suppose  she  did.  She 
got  time  to  go  to  church,  and  to  teach  us  to  read 
the  Bible,  and  to  misunderstand  it  in  the  old  way. 
She  was  good.  But  it  ain't  her  on  her  knees  in  church 
that  comes  back  to  me  so  much  like  the  sight  of  an 
angel  as  her  on  her  knees  before  me  at  night,  washing 
my  poor,  dirty  little  feet,  that  I  'd  run  bare  in  all 
day,  and  making  me  decent  for  bed.  There  were  six 


G  THE  RISE  OF 

of  us  boys ;  it  seems  to  me  we  were  all  of  a  size ; 
and  she  was  just  so  careful  with  all  of  us.  I  can 
feel  her  hands  on  my  feet  yet !"  Bartley  looked  at 
Lupham's  No.  10  boots,  and  softly  whistled  through 
his  teeth.  "  We  were  patched  all  over ;  but  we 
wa'n't  ragged.  I  don't  know  how  she  got  through 
it.  She  didn't  seem  to  think  it  was  anything ;  and 
I  guess  it  was  no  more  than  my  father  expected  of 
her.  He  worked  like  a  horse  in  doors  and  out — up 
at  daylight,  feeding  the  stock,  and  groaning  round 
all  day  with  his  rheumatism,  but  not  stopping." 

Bartley  hid  a  yawn  over  his  note-book,  and  pro 
bably,  if  he  could  have  spoken  his  mind,  he  would 
have  suggested  to  Lapham  that  he  was  not  there 
for  the  purpose  of  interviewing  his  ancestry.  But 
Bartley  had  learned  to  practise  a  patience  with  his 
victims  which  he  did  not  always  feel,  and  to  feign 
an  interest  in  their  digressions  till  he  could  bring 
them  up  with  a  round  turn. 

"I  tell  you,"  said  Lapham,  jabbing  the  point  of 
his  penknife  into  the  writing-pad  on  the  desk  before 
him,  "  when  I  hear  women  complaining  nowadays 
that  their  lives  are  stunted  and  empty,  I  want  to 
tell  'em  about  my  nwtJiefs  life.  /  could  paint  it  out 
for  'em." 

Bartley  saw  his  opportunity  at  the  word  paint, 
and  cut  in.  "  And  you  say,  Mr.  Lapham,  that  you 
discovered  this  mineral  paint  on  the  old  farm  your 
self?" 

Lapham  acquiesced  in  the  return  to  business.  "I 
didn't  discover  it,"  he  said  scrupulously.  "  My 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  7 

father  found  it  one  day,  in  a  hole  made  by  a  tree 
bloAving  down.  There  it  was,  lying  loose  in  the  pit, 
and  sticking  to  the  roots  that  had  pulled  up  a  big 
cake  of  dirt  with  'em.  /  don't  know  what  give  him 
the  idea  that  there  was  money  in  it,  but  he  did 
think  so  from  the  start.  I  guess,  if  they  'd  had  the 
word  in  those  days,  they  'd  considered  him  pretty 
much  of  a  crank  about  it.  He  was  trying  as  long 
as  he  lived  to  get  that  paint  introduced  ;  but  he 
couldn't  make  it  go.  The  country  was  so  poor  they 
couldn't  paint  their  houses  with  anything  ;  and  father 
hadn't  any  facilities.  It  got  to  be  a  kind  of  joke 
with  us ;  and  I  guess  that  paint-mine  did  as  much 
as  any  one  thing  to  make  us  boys  clear  out  as  soon 
as  we  got  old  enough.  All  my  brothers  went  West, 
and  took  up  land  ;  but  I  hung  on  to  New  England, 
and  I  hung  on  to  the  old  farm,  not  because  the 
paint-mine  was  on  it,  but  because  the  old  house  was 
— and  the  graves.  Well,"  said  Lapham,  as  if  unwill 
ing  to  give  himself  too  much  credit,  "  there  wouldn't 
been  any  market  for  it,  anyway.  You  can  go 
through  that  part  of  the  State  and  buy  more  farms 
than  you  can  shake  a  stick  at  for  less  money  than  it 
cost  to  build  the  barns  on  'em.  Of  course,  it 's  turned 
out  a  good  thing.  I  keep  the  old  house  up  in  good 
shape,  and  we  spend  a  month  or  so  there  every 
summer.  M'  wife  kind  of  likes  it,  and  the  girls. 
Pretty  place  ;  sightly  all  round  it.  I  've  got  a  force 
of  men  at  work  there  the  whole  time,  and  I  Ve  got 
a  man  and  his  wife  in  the  house.  Had  a  family 
meeting  there  last  year ;  the  whole  connection  from 


8  THE  RISE  OF 

out  West.  There  !"  Lapham  rose  from  his  seat  and 
took- down  a  large  warped,  unframed  photograph 
from  the  top  of  his  desk,  passing  his  hand  over  it, 
and  then  blowing  vigorously  upon  it,  to  clear  it  of 
the  dust.  "There  we  are,  all  of  us." 

" I  don't  need  to  look  twice  at  you"  said  Bartley, 
putting  his  finger  on  one  of  the  heads. 

"  Well,  that 's  Bill,"  said  Lapham,  with  a  gratified 
laugh.  "  He 's  about  as  brainy  as  any  of  us,  I  guess. 
He's  one  of  their  leading  lawyers,  out  Dubuque 
way ;  been  judge  of  the  Common  Pleas  once  or 
twice.  That's  his  son — just  graduated  at  Yale — 
alongside  of  my  youngest  girl  Good-looking  chap, 
ain't  he?" 

" SJie's  a  good-looking  chap,"  said  Bartley,  with 
prompt  irreverence.  He  hastened  to  add,  at  the 
frown  which  gathered  between  Lapham's  eyes, 
"  What  a  beautiful  creature  she  is  !  What  a  lovely, 
refined,  sensitive  face  !  And  she  looks  good,  too." 

"  She  is  good,"  said  the  father,  relenting. 

"And,  after  all,  that's  about  the  best  thing  in  a 
woman,"  said  the  potential  reprobate.  "  If  my  wife 
wasn't  good  enough  to  keep  both  of  us  straight,  I 
don't  know  what  would  become  of  me." 

"My  other  daughter,"  said  Lapham,  indicating 
a  girl  with  eyes  that  showed  large,  and  a  face  of 
singular  gravity.  "Mis'  Lapham,"  he  continued, 
touching  his  wife's  effigy  with  his  little  finger.  "  My 
brother  Willard  and  his  family — farm  at  Kankakee. 
Hazard  Lapham  and  his  wife — Baptist  preacher  in 
Kansas.  Jim  and  his  three  girls — milling  business 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  9 

at  Minneapolis.  Ben  and  his  family — practising 
medicine  in  Fort  Wayne." 

The  figures  were  clustered  in  an  irregular  group 
in  front  of  an  old  farm-house,  whose  original  ugliness 
had  been  smartened  up  with  a  coat  of  Lapham's  own 
paint,  and  heightened  with  an  incongruous  piazza. 
The  photographer  had  not  been  able  to  conceal  the 
fact  that  they  were  all  decent,  honest-looking,  sensible 
people,  with  a  very  fair  share  of  beauty  among  the 
young  girls ;  some  of  these  were  extremely  pretty,  in 
fact.  He  had  put  them  into  awkward  and  constrained 
attitudes,  of  course  ;  and  they  all  looked  as  if  they 
had  the  instrument  of  torture  which  photographers 
call  a  head-rest  under  their  occiputs.  Here  and  there 
an  elderly  lady's  face  was  a  mere  blur  ;  and  some  of 
the  younger  children  had  twitched  themselves  into 
wavering  shadows,  and  might  have  passed  for  spirit- 
photographs  of  their  own  little  ghosts.  It  was  the 
standard  family-group  photograph,  in  which  most 
Americans  have  figured  at  some  time  or  other ;  and 
Lapham  exhibited  a  just  satisfaction  in  it  "  I  pre 
sume,"  he  mused  aloud,  as  he  put  it  back  on  top  of 
his  desk,  "  that  we  sha'n't  soon  get  together  again, 
all  of  us." 

"  And  you  say,"  suggested  Bartley,  "  that  you 
stayed  right  along  on  the  old  place,  when  the  rest 
cleared  out  West  V 

"  No-o-o-o,"  said  Lapham,  with  a  long,  loud  drawl ; 
"  I  cleared  out  West  too,  first  off.  Went  to  Texas. 
Texas  was  all  the  cry  in  those  days.  But  I  got 
enough  of  the  Lone  Star  in  about  three  months,  and 


10  THE  RISE  OF 

I  come  back  with  the  idea  that  Vermont  was  good 
enough  for  me." 

"  Fatted  calf  business  1 "  queried  Bartley,  with  his 
pencil  poised  above  his  note-book. 

"I  presume  they  were  glad  to  see  me,"  said 
Lapham,  with  dignity.  "Mother,"  he  added  gently, 
"  died  that  winter,  and  I  stayed  on  with  father.  I 
buried  him  in  the  spring  ;  and  then  I  came  down  to 
a  little  place  called  Lumberville,  and  picked  up  what 
jobs  I  could  get.  I  worked  round  at  the  saw-mills, 
and  I  was  ostler  a  while  at  the  hotel — I  always  <li<l 
like  a  good  horse.  Well,  I  wa'n't  exactly  a  college 
graduate,  and  I  went  to  school  odd  times.  I  got  to 
driving  the  stage  after  while,  and  by  and  by  I  Imnjld 
the  stage  and  run  the  business  myself.  Then  I  hired 
the  tavern-stand,  and — well  to  make  a  long  story 
short,  then  I  got  married.  Yes,"  said  Lapham,  with 
pride,  "  I  married  the  school-teacher.  We  did  pretty 
well  with  the  hotel,  and  my  wife  she  was  always  at 
me  to  paint  up.  Well,  I  put  it  off,  and  j9M/  it  off,  as 
a  man  will,  till  one  day  I  give  in,  and  says  I,  '  Well, 
let 's  paint  up.  Why,  Pert,' — m'wife's  name 's  Persis, 
— '  I  've  got  a  whole  paint-mine  out  on  the  farm. 
Let's  go  out  and  look  at  it.'  So  we  drove  out.  I  'd 
let  the  place  for  seventy-five  dollars  a  year  to  a 
shif'lcss  kind  of  a  Kanuck  that  had  come  down  that 
way  ;  and  I  'd  hated  to  see  the  house  with  him  in  it ; 
but  we  drove  out  one  Saturday  afternoon,  and  we 
brought  back  about  a  bushel  of  the  stuff  in  the  buggy- 
seat,  and  I  tried  it  crude,  and  I  tried  it  burnt ;  and 
I  liked  it.  M'wife  she  liked  it  too.  There  wa'n't 


SILAS  LAPIIAM  11 

any  painter  by  trade  In  the  village,  and  I  mixed  it 
myself.  Well,  sir,  that  tavern's  got  that  coat  of 
paint  on  it  yet,  and  it  hain't  ever  had  any  other,  and 
I  don't  know 's  it  ever  will.  Well,  you  know,  I  felt 
as  if  it  was  a  kind  of  harumscarum  experiment,  all 
the  while  ;  and  I  presume  I  shouldn't  have  tried  it, 
but  I  kind  of  liked  to  do  it  because  father  'd  always 
set  so  much  store  by  his  paint-mine.  And  when  I'd 
got  the  first  coat  on," — Lapham  called  it  cut, — "  I 
presume  I  must  have  set  as  much  as  half  an  hour, 
looking  at  it  and  thinking  how  he  would  have  enjoyed 
it.  I  've  had  my  share  of  luck  in  this  world,  and  I 
ain't  a-going  to  complain  on  my  own  account,  but  I  Ve 
noticed  that  most  things  get  along  too  late  for  most 
people.  It  made  me  feel  bad,  and  it  took  all  the 
pride  out  my  success  with  the  paint,  thinking  of 
father.  Seemed  to  me  I  might  'a  taken  more  inte 
rest  in  it  when  he  was  by  to  see  ;  but  we've  got  to 
live  and  learn.  Well,  I  called  my  wife  out, — I'd 
tried  it  on  the  back  of  the  house,  you  know, —  and 
she  left  her  dishes, — I  can  remember  she  came  out 
with  her  sleeves  rolled  up  and  set  down  alongside  of 
me  on  the  trestle, — and  says  I,  '  What  do  you  think, 
Persis  1'  And  says  she,  '  Well,  you  hain't  got  a 
paint-mine,  Silas  Lapham  ;  you  've  got  a  gold-mine.' 
She  always  was  just  so  enthusiastic  about  things. 
Well,  it  was  just  after  two  or  three  boats  had  burnt 
up  out  West,  and  a  lot  of  lives  lost,  and  there  was 
a  great  cry  about  non-inflammable  paint,  and  I  guess 
that  was  what  was  in  her  mind.  '  Well,  I  guess  it 
ain't  any  gold-mine,  Persis,'  says  I ;  '  but  I  guess  it 


12  THE  RISE  OF 

is  a  paint-mine.  I  'm  going  to  have  it  analysed,  and 
if  it  turns  out  what  I  think  it  is,  I  'm  going  to  work 
it.  And  if  father  hadn't  had  such  a  long  name,  I 
should  call  it  the  Nehemiah  Lapham  Mineral  Paint. 
But,  any  rate,  every  barrel  of  it,  and  every  keg, 
and  every  bottle,  and  every  package,  big  or  little, 
has  got  to  have  the  initials  and  figures  N.  L.  f.  1835, 
S.  L.  t.  1855,  on  it.  Father  found  it  in  1835,  and 
I  tried  it  in  1855.'" 

"  '  S.  T.— 1860— X.'  business,"  said  Bartley. 

"  Yes,"  said  Lapham,  "  but  I  hadn't  heard  of 
Plantation  Bitters  then,  and  I  hadn't  seen  any  of 
the  fellow's  labels.  I  set  to  work  and  I  got  a  man 
down  from  Boston ;  and  I  carried  him  out  to  the 
farm,  and  he  analysed  it — made  a  regular  job  of  it. 
Well,  sir,  we  built  a  kiln,  and  we  kept  a  lot  of  that 
paint-ore  red-hot  for  forty-eight  hours;  kept  the 
Kanuck  and  his  family  up,  firing.  The  presence  of 
iron  in  the  ore  showed  with  the  magnet  from  the 
start;  and  when  he  came  to  test  it,  he  found  out 
that  it  contained  about  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the 
peroxide  of  iron." 

Lapham  pronounced  the  scientific  phrases  with 
a  sort  of  reverent  satisfaction,  as  if  awed  through 
his  pride  by  a  little  lingering  uncertainty  as  to 
what  peroxide  was.  He  accented  it  as  if  it  were 
purr-ox-eyed ;  and  Bartley  had  to  get  him  to 
spell  it. 

"  Well,  and  what  then  ?"  he  asked,  when  he  had 
made  a  note  of  the  percentage. 

"What  then?"  echoed   Lapham.      "Well,  then, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  13 

the  fellow  set  down  and  told  me,  '  You  Ve  got  a 
paint  here,'  says  he,  '  that 's  going  to  drive  every 
other  mineral  paint  out  of  the  market.  Why,' 
says  he,  'it'll  drive  'em  right  into  the  Back  Bay  !' 
Of  course,  /  didn't  know  what  the  Back  Bay  was 
then ;  but  I  begun  to  open  my  eyes  ;  thought  I  'd 
had  'em  open  before,  but  I  guess  I  hadn't.  Says 
he,  '  That  paint  has  got  hydraulic  cement  in  it,  and 
it  can  stand  fire  and  water  and  acids;'  he  named 
over  a  lot  of  things.  Says  he,  '  It  '11  mix  easily  with 
linseed  oil,  whether  you  want  to  use  it  boiled  or 
raw;  and  it  ain't  a-going  to  crack  nor  fade  any; 
and  it  ain't  a-going  to  scale.  When  you've  got 
your  arrangements  for  burning  it  properly,  you're 
going  to  have  a  paint  that  will  stand  like  the 
everlasting  hills,  in  every  climate  -under  the  sun.' 
Then  he  went  into  a  lot  of  particulars,  and  I  begun 
to  think  he  was  drawing  a  long-bow,  and  meant  to 
make  his  bill  accordingly.  So  I  kept  pretty  cool; 
but  the  fellow's  bill  didn't  amount  to  anything 
hardly — said  I  might  pay  him  after  I  got  going; 
young  chap,  and  pretty  easy ;  but  every  word  he 
said  was  gospel.  Well,  I  ain't  a-going  to  brag  up 
my  paint;  I  don't  suppose  you  came  here  to  hear 

me  blow " 

"Oh  yes,  I  did,"  said  Bartley.  "That's  what  I 
want.  Tell  all  there  is  to  tell,  and  I  can  boil  it 
down  afterward.  A  man  can't  make  a  greater  mis 
take  with  a  reporter  than  to  hold  back  anything 
out  of  modesty.  It  may  be  the  very  thing  we  want 
to  know.  What  we  want  is  the  whole  truth ;  and 


14  THE  RISE  OF 

more ;  we  Ve  got  so  much  modesty  of  our  own  that 
we  can  temper  almost  any  statement." 

Lapham  looked  as  if  he  did  not  quite  like  this 
tone,  and  he  resumed  a  little  more  quietly.  ."  Oh, 
there  isn't  really  very  much  more  to  say  about  the 
paint  itself.  But  you  can  use  it  for  almost  anything 
where  a  paint  is  wanted,  inside  or  out.  It  '11  prevent 
decay,  and  it'll  stop  it,  after  it's  begun,  in  tin  or 
iron.  You  can  paint  the  inside  of  a  cistern  or  a 
bath-tub  with  it,  and  water  won't  hurt  it ;  and  you 
can  paint  a  steam-boiler  with  it,  and  heat  won't. 
You  can  cover  a  brick  wall  with  it,  or  a  railroad 
car,  or  the  deck  of  a  steamboat,  and  you  can't  do  a 
better  thing  for  either." 

"Never  tried  it  on  the  human  conscience,  I 
suppose,"  suggested  Bartley. 

"  No,  sir,"  replied  Lapham  gravely.  "  I  guess 
you  want  to  keep  that  as  free  from  paint  as  you  can, 
if  you  want  much  use  of  it.  I  never  cared  to  try 
any  of  it  on  mine."  Lapham  suddenly  lifted  his 
bulk  up  out  of  his  swivel-chair,  and  led  the  way  out 
into  the  wareroom  beyond  the  office  partitions, 
where  rows  and  ranks  of  casks,  barrels,  and  kegs 
stretched  dimly  back  to  the  rear  of  the  building,  and 
diffused  an  honest,  clean,  wholesome  smell  of  oil  and 
paint  They  were  labelled  and  branded  as  contain 
ing  each  so  many  pounds  of  Lapham's  Mineral  Paint, 
and  each  bore  the  mystic  devices,  N.  L.  f.  1835 — S. 
L.  t.  1855.  "There!"  said  Lapham,  kicking  one  of 
the  largest  casks  with  the  toe  of  his  boot,  "  that 's 
about  our  biggest  package;  and  here,"  he  added, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  15 

laying  his  hand  affectionately  on  the  head  of  a  very 
small  keg,  as  if  it  were  the  head  of  a  child,  Avhich  it 
resembled  in  size,  "  this  is  the  smallest.  We  used 
to  put  the  paint  on  the  market  dry,  but  now  we 
grind  every  ounce  of  it  in  oil — very  best  quality  of 
linseed  oil — and  warrant  it.  We  find  it  gives  more 
satisfaction.  Now,  come  back  to  the  office,  and  1  '11 
show  you  our  fancy  brands." 

It  was  very  cool  and  pleasant  in  that  dim  ware- 
room,  with  the  rafters  showing  overhead  in  a  cloudy 
perspective,  and  darkening  away  into  the  perpetual 
twilight  at  the  rear  of  the  building  j  and  Bartley 
had  found  an  agreeable  seat  on  the  head  of  a  half- 
barrel  of  the  paint,  which  he  was  reluctant  to  leave. 
But  he  rose  and  followed  the  vigorous  lead  of 
Lapham  back  to  the  office,  where  the  sun  of  a  long 
summer  afternoon  Avas  just  beginning  to  glare  in  at 
the  window.  On  shelves  opposite  Lapham's  desk 
were  tin  cans  of  various  sizes,  arranged  in  tapering 
cylinders,  and  showing,  in  a  pattern  diminishing 
toward  the  top,  the  same  label  borne  by  the  casks 
and  barrels  in  the  wareroom.  Lapham  merely 
waved  his  hand  toward  these;  but  when  Bartley, 
after  a  comprehensive  glance  at  them,  gave  his 
whole  attention  to  a  row  of  clean,  smooth  jars, 
where  different  tints  of  the  paint  showed  through 
flawless  glass,  Lapham  smiled,  and  waited  in  pleased 
expectation. 

"  Hello  ! "  said  Bartley.     "  That 's  pretty  !" 
"  Yes,"  assented  Lapham,  "  it  is  rather  nice.     It 's 
our  latest  thing,  and  we  find  it  takes  with  customers 


16  THE  RISE  OF 

first-rate.  Look  here  !"  he  said,  taking  down  one  of 
the  jars,  and  pointing  to  the  first  line  of  the  label. 

Bartley  read,  "THE  PERSIS  BRAND,"  and 
then  he  looked  at  Lapham  and  smiled. 

"  After  her,  of  course,"  said  Lapham.  "  Got  it 
up  and  put  the  first  of  it  on  the  market  her  last 
birthday.  She  was  pleased." 

"I  should  think  she  might  have  been,"  said 
Bartley,  while  he  made  a  note  of  the  appearance  of 
the  jars. 

"  I  don't  know  about  your  mentioning  it  in  your 
interview,"  said  Lapham  dubiously. 

"That's  going  into  the  interview,  Mr.  Lapham, 
if  nothing  else  does.  Got  a  wife  myself,  and  I  know 
just  how  you  feel."  It  was  in  the  dawn  of  Bartley's 
prosperity  on  the  Boston  Events,  before  his  troubles 
with  Marcia  had  seriously  begun. 

"Is  that  so?"  said  Lapham,  recognising  with  a 
smile  another  of  the  vast  majority  of  married 
Americans;  a  few  underrate  their  wives,  but  the 
rest  think  them  supernal  in  intelligence  and  capa 
bility.  "  Well,"  he  added,  "  we  must  see  about 
that.  Where  'd  you  say  you  lived  ?" 

"We  don't  live;  we  board.  Mrs.  Nash,  13 
Canary  Place." 

"Well,  we've  all  got  to  commence  that  way,"  sug 
gested  Lapham  consolingly. 

"Yes;  but  we've  about  got  to  the  end  of  our 
string.  I  expect  to  be  under  a  roof  of  my  own  on 
Clover  Street  before  long.  I  suppose,"  said  Bartley, 
returning  to  business,  "that  you  didn't  let  the  grass 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  17 

grow  under  your  feet  much  after  you  found  out  what 
was  in  your  paint-mine1?" 

"  No,  sir,"  answered  Lapham,  withdrawing  his 
eyes  from  a  long  stare  at  Bartley,  in  which  he  had 
been  seeing  himself  a  young  man  again,  in  the  first 
days  of  his  married  life.  "I  went  right  back  to 
Lumberville  and  sold  out  everything,  and  put  all  I 
could  rake  and  scrape  together  into  paint.  And 
Mis'  Lapham  was  with  me  every  time.  No  hang 
back  about  her.  I  tell  you  she  was  a  ivoman  /" 

Bartley  laughed.  "  That 's  the  sort  most  of  us 
marry." 

"No,  we  don't,"  said  Lapham.  "  Most  of  us 
marry  silly  little  girls  grown  up  to  look  like  women." 

"  Well,  I  guess  that's  about  so,"  assented  Bartley, 
as  if  upon  second  thought. 

"  If  it  hadn't  been  for  her,"  resumed  Lapnam, 
"  the  paint  wouldn't  have  come  to  anything.  I  used 
to  tell  her  it  wa'n't  the  seventy- five  per  cent,  of  purr- 
ox-eyed  of  iron  in  the  ore  that  made  that  paint  go  ; 
it  was  the  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  purr-ox-eyed  of 
iron  in  her." 

11  Good  !"  cried  Bartley.     "  I  '11  tell  Marcia  that" 

"  In  less  'n  six  months  there  wa'n't  a  board-fence, 
nor  a  bridge-girder,  nor  a  dead  wall,  nor  a  barn,  nor 
a  face  of  rock  in  that  whole  region  that  didn't  have 
'Lapham's  Mineral  Paint — Specimen'  on  it  in  the 
three  colours  we  begun  by  making."  Bartley  had 
taken  his  seat  on  the  window-sill,  and  Lapham, 
standing  before  him,  now  put  up  his  huge  foot  close 
to  Bartley's  thigh ;  neither  of  them  minded  that. 
B 


18  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  Ve  heard  a  good  deal  of  talk  about  that 
S.  T. — 1860 — X.  man,  and  the  stove-blacking  man, 
and  the  kidney-cure  man,  because  they  advertised 
in  that  way  ;  and  I  've  read  articles  about  it  in 
the  papers;  but  I  don't  see  where  the  joke  comes 
in,  exactly.  So  long  as  the  people  that  own  the 
barns  and  fences  don't  object,  I  don't  see  what  the 
public  has  got  to  do  with  it.  And  I  never  saw 
anything  so  very  sacred  about  a  big  rock,  along 
a,  river  or  in  a  pasture,  that  it  wouldn't  do  to  put 
mineral  paint  on  it  in  three  colours.  I  wish  some 
of  the  people  that  talk  about  the  landscape,  and 
ir r it i',  about  it,  had  to  bu'st  one  of  them  rocks  out  of 
the  landscape  with  powder,  or  dig  a  hole  to  bury 
it  in,  as  we  used  to  have  to  do  up  on  the  farm ;  I 
guess  they  'd  sing  a  little  different  tune  about  the 
profanation  of  scenery.  There  ain't  any  man  enjoys 
a  sightly  bit  of  nature — a  smooth  piece  of  interval 
with  half  a  dozen  good-sized  wine-glass  elms  in  it — • 
more  than  I  do.  But  I  ain't  a-going  to  stand  up  for 
every  big  ugly  rock  I  come  across,  as  if  we  were  all 
a  set  of  dtimn  Druids.  I  say  the  landscape  was 
made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  landscape." 

"  Yes,"  said  Bartley  carelessly ;  "  it  was  made  for 
the  stove-polish  man  and  the  kidney-cure  man." 

"  It  was  made  for  any  man  that  knows  how  to  use 
it,"  Lapham  returned,  insensible  to  Bartley's  irony. 
"Let  'em  go  and  live  with  nature  in  the  winter, 
up  there  along  the  Canada  line,  and  I  guess  they'll  get 
enough  of  her  for  one  while.  Well — where  was  I  ?" 

"Decorating  the  landscape,"  said  Bartley. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  19 

"Yes,  sir;  I  started  right  there  at  Lumberville, 
and  it  give  the  place  a  start  too.  You  won't  find  it 
on  the  map  now ;  and  you  won't  find  it  in  the  gazet 
teer.  1  give  a  pretty  good  lump  of  money  to  build 
a  town-hall,  about  five  years  back,  and  the  first 
meeting  they  held  in  it  they  voted  to  change  the 
name, — Lumberville  ica'n't  a  name, — and  it 's  Lapham 
now." 

"  Isn't  it  somewhere  up  in  that  region  that  they 
get  the  old  Brandon  red  1"  asked  Bartley. 

"  We  're  about  ninety  miles  from  Brandon.  The 
Brandon's  a  good  paint,"  said  Lapham  conscien 
tiously.  "  Like  to  show  you  round  up  at  our  place 
some  odd  time,  if  you  get  off." 

"Thanks.  I  should  like  it  first-rate.  Works 
there  ?" 

"  Yes  ;  works  there.  Well,  sir,  just  about  the 
time  I  got  started,  the  war  broke  out ;  and  it 
knocked  my  paint  higher  than  a  kite.  The  thing 
dropped  perfectly  dead.  I  presume  that  if  I  'd  had 
any  sort  of  influence,  I  might  have  got  it  into  Govern 
ment  hands,  for  gun-carriages  and  army  wagons, 
and  may  be  on  board  Government  vessels.  But  I 
hadn't,  and  we  had  to  face  the  music.  I  was  about 
broken-hearted,  but  m'wife  she  looked  at  it  another 
way.  '  /  guess  it 's  a  providence,'  says  she.  '  Silas, 
I  guess  you  've  got  a  country  that 's  worth  fighting 
for.  Any  rate,  you  better  go  out  and  give  it  a 
chance.'  Well,  sir,  I  went.  I  knew  she  meant 
business.  It  might  kill  her  to  have  me  go,  but  it 
would  kill  her  sure  if  I  stayed.  She  was  one  of  that 


20  THE  RISE  OF 

kind.  I  went.  Her  last  words  was,  '  I  '11  look 
after  the  paint,  Si.'  We  hadn't  but  just  one  little 
girl  then, — boy  'd  died, — and  Mis'  Lapham's  mother 
was  livin'  with  us ;  and  I  knew  if  times  difl  any 
ways  come  up  again,  m'wife  'd  know  just  what  to  do. 
So  I  went.  I  got  through ;  and  you  can  call  me 
Colonel,  if  you  want  to.  Feel  there !"  Lapham 
took  Bartley's  thumb  and  forefinger  and  put  them 
on  a  bunch  in  his  leg,  just  above  the  knee.  "  Any 
thing  hard?" 

"Ball?" 

Lapham  nodded.  "  Gettysburg.  That 's  my  ther 
mometer.  If  it  wa'n't  for  that,  I  shouldn't  know 
enough  to  come  in  when  it  rains." 

Bartley  laughed  at  a  joke  which  betrayed  some 
evidences  of  wear.  "  And  when  you  came  back, 
you  took  hold  of  the  paint  and  rushed  it." 

"  I  took  hold  of  the  paint  and  rushed  it — all  I 
could,"  said  Lapham,  with  less  satisfaction  than  he 
had  hitherto  shown  in  his  autobiography.  "  But  I 
found  that  I  had  got  back  to  another  world.  The 
day  of  small  things  was  past,  and  I  don't  suppose  it 
will  ever  come  again  in  this  country.  My  wife  was 
at  me  all  the  time  to  take  a  partner — somebody  with 
capital ;  but  I  couldn't  seem  to  bear  the  idea.  That 
paint  was  like  my  own  blood  to  me.  To  have  any 
body  else  concerned  in  it  was  like — well,  I  don't 
know  what.  I  saw  it  was  the  thing  to  do  ;  but  I 
tried  to  fight  it  off,  and  I  tried  to  joke  it  off.  I 
used  to  say,  '  Why  didn't  you  take  a  partner  your 
self,  Persis,  while  I  was  away  ? '  And  she  'd  say, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  21 

'Well,  if  you  hadn't  come  back,  I  should,  Si.' 
Always  did  like  a  joke  about  as  well  as  any  woman 
/  ever  saw.  Well,  I  had  to  come  to  it.  I  took  a 
partner."  Lapham  dropped  the  bold  blue  eyes  with 
which  he  had  been  till  now  staring  into  Bartley's 
face,  and  the  reporter  knew  that  here  was  a  place 
for  asterisks  in  his  interview,  if  interviews  were 
faithful.  "  He  had  money  enough,"  continued 
Lapham,  with  a  suppressed  sigh ;  "  but  he  didn't 
know  anything  about  paint.  We  hung  on  together 
for  a  year  or  two.  And  then  we  quit." 

"  And  he  had  the  experience,"  suggested  Bartley, 
with  companionable  ease. 

"  I  had  some  of  the  experience  too,"  said  Lapham, 
with  a  scowl ;  and  Bartley  divined,  through  the 
freemasonry  of  all  who  have  sore  places  in  their 
memories,  that  this  was  a  pointy  which  he  must  not 
touch  again.  » 

"  And  since  that,  I  suppose,  you  've  played  it 
alone." 

"  I  've  played  it  alone." 

"  You  must  ship  some  of  this  paint  of  yours 
to  foreign  countries,  Colonel  ?"  suggested  Bartley, 
putting  on  a  professional  air. 

"  We  ship  it  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  It  goes 
to  South  America,  lots  of  it.  It  goes  to  Australia, 
and  it  goes  to  India,  and  it  goes  to  China,  and  it  goes 
to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  It  '11  stand  any  climate. 
Of  course,  we  don't  export  these  fancy  brands 
much.  They're  for  home  use.  But  we're  intro 
ducing  them  elsewhere.  Here."  Lapham  pulled 


22  THE  RISE  OF 

open  a  drawer,  and  showed  Bartley  a  lot  of  labels  in 
different  languages — Spanish,  French,  German,  and 
Italian.  "  We  expect  to  do  a  good  business  in  all 
those  countries.  We  've  got  our  agencies  in  Cadiz 
now,  and  in  Paris,  and  in  Hamburg,  and  in  Leghorn. 
It 's  a  thing  that 's  bound  to  make  its  way.  Yes,  sir. 
Wherever  a  man  has  got  a  ship,  or  a  bridge,  or  a 
dock,  or  a  house,  or  a  car,  or  a  fence,  or  a  pig-pen 
anywhere  in  God's  universe  to  paint,  that 's  the  paint 
for  him,  and  he  's  bound  to  find  it  out  sooner  or  later. 
You  pass  a  ton  of  that  paint  dry  through  a  blast 
furnace,  and  you  '11  get  a  quarter  of  a  ton  of  pig-iron. 
I  believe  in  my  paint.  I  believe  it 's  a  blessing  to 
the  world.  When  folks  come  in,  and  kind  of  smell 
round,  and  ask  me  what  I  mix  it  with,  I  always  say, 
'  Well,  in  the  first  place,  I  mix  it  with  Faith,  and 
after  that  I  grind  it  up  with  the  best  quality  of 
boiled  linseed  oil  that  money  will  buy.' " 

Lapham  took  out  his  watch  and  looked  at  it,  and 
Bartley  perceived  that  his  audience  was  drawing  to 
a  close.  "  'F  you  ever  want  to  run  down  and  take 
a  look  at  our  works,  pass  you  over  the  road," — he 
called  it  rud, — "  and  it  sha'n't  cost  you  a  cent." 

"  Well,  may  be  I  shall,  sometime,','  said  Bartley. 
"  Good  afternoon,  Colonel." 

"  Good  afternoon.  Or — hold  on  !  My  horse  down 
there  yet,  William  ?"  he  called  to  the  young  man  in 
the  counting-room  who  had  taken  his  letter  at  the 
beginning  of  the  interview.  "Oh!  All  right  !"  he 
added,  in  response  to  something  the  young  man  said. 
t:  Can't  I  set  you  down  somewhere,  Mr.  Hubbard  1 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  23 

I  've  got  my  horse  at  the  door,  and  I  can  drop  you 
on  my  way  home.  I  'm  going  to  take  Mis'  Lapham 
to  look  at  a  house  I  'm  driving  piles  for,  down  on  the 
New  Land." 

"  Don't  care  if  I  do,"  said  Hartley. 

Lapham  put  on  a  straw  hat,  gathered  up  some 
papers  lying  on  his  desk,  pulled  down  its  rolling 
cover,  turned  the  key  in  it,  and  gave  the  papers 
to  an  extremely  handsome  young  woman  at  one 
of  the  desks  in  the  outer  office.  She  was  stylishly 
dressed,  as  Bartley  saw,  and  her  smooth,  yellow  hair 
was  sculpturesquely  waved  over  a  low,  white  fore 
head.  "  Here,"  said  Lapham,  with  the  same  prompt 
gruff  kindness  that  he  had  used  in  addressing  the 
young  man,  "  I  want  you  should  put  these  in  shape, 
and  give  me  a  type- writer  copy  to  morrow." 

"  What  an  uncommonly  pretty  girl !"  said  Bartley, 
as  they  descended  the  rough  stairway  and  found 
their  way  out  to  the  street,  past  the  dangling  rope 
of  a  block  and  tackle  Avandering  up  into  the  caver 
nous  darkness  overhead. 

"  She  does  her  work,"  said  Lapham  shortly. 

Bartley  mounted  to  the  left  side  of  the  open  buggy 
standing  at  the  curb-stone,  and  Lapham,  gathering 
up  the  hitching-weight,  slid  it  under  the  buggy-seat 
and  mounted  beside  him. 

"  No  chance  to  speed  a  horse  here,  of  course," 
said  Lapham,  while  the  horse  with  a  spirited  gentle 
ness  picked  her  way,  with  a  high,  long  action,  over 
the  pavement  of  the  street".  The  streets  were  all  nar 
row,  and  most  of  them  crooked,  in  that  quarter  of 


24  THE  RISE  OF 

the  town  ;  but  at  the  end  of  one  the  spars  of  a  vessel 
pencilled  themselves  delicately  against  the  cool  blue 
of  the  afternoon  sky.  The  air  was  full  of  a  smell 
pleasantly  compounded  of  oakum,  of  leather,  and  of 
oil.  It  was  not  the  busy  season,  and  they  met  only 
two  or  three  trucks  heavily  straggling  toward  the 
wharf  with  their  long  string  teams  ;  but  the  cobble 
stones  of  the  pavement  were  worn  with  the  dint  of 
ponderous  wheels,  and  discoloured  with  iron-rust 
from  them  ;  here  and  there,  in  wandering  streaks 
over  its  surface,  was  the  grey  stain  of  the  salt  water 
with  which  the  street  had  been  sprinkled. 

After  an  interval  of  some  minutes,  which  both  men 
spent  in  looking  round  the  dash-board  from  opposite 
sides  to  watch  the  stride  of  the  horse,  Bartley  said, 
with  a  light  sigh,  "  I  had  a  colt  once  down  in  Maine 
that  stepped  just  like  that  mare." 

"Well!"  said  Lapham,  sympathetically  recognis 
ing  the  bond  that  this  fact  created  between  them. 
"  Well,  now,  I  tell  you  what  you  do.  You  let  me 
come  for  you  'most  any  afternoon,  now,  and  take 
vou  out  over  the  Milldam,  and  speed  this  mare  a 
little.  I  'd  like  to  show  you  what  this  mare  can  do. 
Yes,  I  would." 

"All  right,"  answered  Bartley;  "I'll  let  you 
know  my  first  day  off." 

"  Good,"  cried  Lapham. 

"  Kentucky  ?"  queried  Bartley. 

"  No,  sir.  I  don't  ride  behind  anything  but 
Yermont ;  never  did.  Touch  of  Morgan,  of  course  ; 
but  you  can't  have  much  Morgan  in  a  horse  if  you 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  25 

want  speed.  Hambletonian  mostly.  Where  'd  you 
say  you  wanted  to  get  out  1" 

"  I  guess  you  may  put  me  down  at  the  Events 
Office,  just  round  the  corner  here.  I  've  got  to  write 
up  this  interview  while  it 's  fresh." 

"  All  right,"  said  Lapham,  impersonally  assenting 
to  Hartley's  use  of  him  as  material. 

He  had  not  much  to  complain  of  in  Bartley's 
treatment,  unless  it  was  the  strain  of  extravagant 
compliment  which  it  involved.  But  the  flattery 
was  mainly  for  the  paint,  whose  virtues  Lapham  did 
not  believe  could  be  overstated,  and  himself  and 
his  history  had  been  treated  with  as  much  respect 
as  Bartley  was  capable  of  showing  any  one.  He 
made  a  very  picturesque  thing  of  the  discovery  of 
the  paint-mine.  "  Deep  in  the  heart  of  the  virgin 
forests  of  Vermont,  far  up  toward  the  line  of  the 
Canadian  snows,  on  a  desolate  mountain-side,  where 
an  autumnal  storm  had  done  its  wild  work,  and  the 
great  trees,  strewn  hither  and  thither,  bore  witness 
to  its  violence,  Nehemiah  Lapham  discovered,  just 
forty  years  ago,  the  mineral  which  the  alchemy  of 
his  son's  enterprise  and  energy  has  transmuted  into 
solid  ingots  of  the  most  precious  of  metals.  The 
colossal  fortune  of  Colonel  Silas  Lapham  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  a  hole  which  an  uprooted  tree  had  dug  for 
him,  and  which  for  many  years  remained  a  paint- 
mine  of  no  more  appreciable  value  than  a  soap-mine." 

Here  Bartley  had  not  been  able  to  forego  another 
grin ;  but  he  compensated  for  it  by  the  high  re 
verence  with  which  he  spoke  of  Colonel  Lapham's 


26  THE  RISE  OF 

record  during  the  war  of  the  rebellion,  and  of  the 
motives  which  impelled  him  to  turn  aside  from  an 
enterprise  in  which  his  whole  heart  was  engaged, 
and  take  part  in  the  struggle.  "  The  Colonel  bears 
embedded  in  the  muscle  of  his  right  leg  a  little  me 
mento  of  the  period  in  the  shape  of  a  minie-ball, 
which  he  jocularly  referred  to  as  his  thermometer, 
and  which  relieves  him  from  the  necessity  of  reading 
'  The  Probabilities '  in  his  morning  paper.  This 
saves  him  just  so  much  time ;  and  for  a  man  who, 
as  he  said,  has  not  a  moment  of  waste  time  on  him 
anywhere,  five  minutes  a  day  are  something  in  the 
course  of  a  year.  Simple,  clear,  bold,  and  straight 
forward  in  mind  and  action,  Colonel  Silas  Lapham, 
with  a  prompt  comprehensiveness  and  a  never-failing 
business  sagacity,  is,  in  the  best  sense  of  that  much- 
abused  term,  one  of  nature's  noblemen,  to  the  last 
inch  of  his  five  eleven  and  a  half.  His  life  affords  an 
example  of  single-minded  application  and  unwaver 
ing  perseverance  which  our  young  business  men 
would  do  well  to  emulate.  There  is  nothing  showy 
or  meretricious  about  the  man.  He  believes  in 
mineral  paint,  and  he  puts  his  heart  and  soul  into 
it.  He  makes  it  a  religion;  though  we  would  not 
imply  that  it  is  his  religion.  Colonel  Lapham  is  a 
regular  attendant  at  the  Rev.  Dr.  Langworthy's 
church.  He  subscribes  liberally  to  the  Associated 
Charities,  and  no  good  object  or  worthy  public 
enterprise  fails  to  receive  his  support.  He  is  not 
now  actively  in  politics,  and  his  paint  is  not  par 
tisan  ;  but  it  is  an  open  secret  that  he  is,  and  always 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  27 

has  been,  a  staunch  Republican.  Without  violating 
the  sanctities  of  private  life,  we  cannot  speak  fully 
of  various  details  which  came  out  in  the  free  and 
unembarrassed  interview  which  Colonel  Lapham 
accorded  our  representative.  But  we  may  say  that 
the  success  of  which  he  is  justly  proud  he  is  also 
proud  to  attribute  in  great  measure  to  the  sympathy 
and  energy  of  his  wife — one  of  those  women  who, 
in  whatever  walk  of  life,  seem  born  to  honour  the 
name  of  American  Woman,  and  to  redeem  it  from 
the  national  reproach  of  Daisy  Millerism.  Of  Colo 
nel  Lapham's  family,  we  will  simply  add  that  it 
consists  of  two  young  lady  daughters. 

"  The  subject  of  this  very  inadequate  sketch  is 
building  a  house  on  the  water  side  of  Beacon  Street, 
after  designs  by  one  of  our  leading  architectural 
firms,  which,  when  complete,  will  be  one  of  the 
finest  ornaments  of  that  exclusive  avenue.  It  will, 
we  believe,  be  ready  for  the  occupancy  of  the  family 
sometime  in  the  spring." 

When  Bartley  had  finished  his  article,  which  he  did 
with  a  good  deal  of  inward  derision,  he  went  home 
to  Marcia,  still  smiling  over  the  thought  of  Lapham, 
whose  burly  simplicity  had  peculiarly  amused  him. 

"  He  regularly  turned  himself  inside  out  to  me," 
he  said,  as  he  sat  describing  his  interview  to 
Marcia. 

"  Then  I  know  you  could  make  something  nice 
out  of  it,"  said  his  wife ;  "  and  that  will  please  Mr. 
Witherby." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  Ve  done  pretty  well ;  but  I  couldn't 


28  THE  RISE  OF 

let  myself  loose  on  him  the  way  I  wanted  to.  Con 
found  the  limitations  of  decency,  anyway  !  I  should 
like  to  have  told  just  what  Colonel  Lapham  thought 
of  landscape  advertising  in  Colonel  Lapham's  own 
words.  I  '11  tell  you  one  thing,  Marsh :  he  had  a 
girl  there  at  one  of  the  desks  that  you  wouldn't  let 
'me  have  within  gunshot  of  my  office.  Pretty '<  It 
ain't  any  name  for  it ! "  Marcia's  eyes  began  to  blaze, 
and  Bartley  broke  out  into  a  laugh,  in  which  he 
arrested  himself  at  sight  of  a  formidable  parcel  in 
the  corner  of  the  room. 

"Hello!     What's  that?" 

"  Why,  I  don't  know  what  it  is,"  replied  Marcia 
tremulously.  "  A  man  brought  it  just  before  you 
came  in,  and  I  didn't  like  to  open  it." 

"  Think  it  was  some  kind  of  infernal  machine  1" 
asked  Bartley,  getting-  down  on  his  knees  to  examine 
the  package.  "Mrs.  B.  Hubbard,  heigh  1"  He  cut 
the  heavy  hemp  string  with  his  penknife.  "  We 
must  look  into  this  thing.  I  should  like  to  know 
who's  sending  packages  to  Mrs.  Hubbard  in  my 
absence."  He  unfolded  the:  wrappings  of  paper, 
growing  softer  and  finer  inward,  and  presently 
pulled  out  a  handsome  square  glass  jar,  through 
which  a  crimson  mass  showed  richly.  "  The  Persis 
Brand  !"  he  yelled.  "  I  knew  it !" 

"Oh,  what  is  it,  Bartley]"  quavered  Marcia. 
Then,  courageously  drawing  a  little  nearer :  "  Is  it 
some  kind  of  jam  1 "  she  implored. 

"  Jam  ?  No  ! "  roared  Bartley.  "  It 's  paint !  It 's 
mineral  paint — Lapham's  paint !" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  29 

"Paint?"  echoed  Marcia,  as  she  stood  over  him 
while  he  stripped  their  wrappings  from  the  jars 
which  showed  the  dark  blue,  dark  green,  light 
brown,  dark  brown,  and  black,  with  the  dark 
crimson,  forming  the  gamut  of  colour  of  the  Lapham 
paint.  "  Don't  tell  me  it 's  paint  that  /  can  use, 
Bartley  !" 

"  Well,  I  shouldn't  advise  you  to  use  much  of  it 
— all  at  once,"  replied  her  husband.  "  But  it 's 
paint  that  you  can  use  in  moderation." 

Marcia  cast  her  arms  round  his  neck  and  kissed 
him.  "  O  Bartley,  I  think  I  'm  the  happiest  girl  in 
the  world !  I  was  just  wondering  what  I  should  do. 
There  are  places  in  that  Clover  Street  house  that 
need  touching  up  so  dreadfully.  I  shall  be  very 
careful.  You  needn't  be  afraid  I  shall  overdo.  But, 
this  just  saves  my  life.  Did  you  buy  it,  Bartley  ? 
You  know  we  couldn't  afford  it,  and  you  oughtn't 
to  have  done  it !  And  what  does  the  Persis  Brand 
mean  f 

"  Buy  it  1 "  cried  Bartley.  "  No  !  The  old  fool 's 
sent  it  to  you  as  a  present.  You  'd  better  wait  for 
the  facts  before  you  pitch  into  me  for  extravagance, 
Marcia.  Persis  is  the  name  of  his  wife ;  and  he 
named  it  after  her  because  it 's  his  finest  brand. 
You  '11  see  it  in  my  interview.  Put  it  on  the 
market  her  last  birthday  for  a  surprise  to  her." 

"  What  old  fool  ?"  faltered  Marcia. 

"  Why,  Lapham — the  mineral  paint  man." 

"  Oh,  what  a  good  man  !"  sighed  Marcia  from  the 
"bottom  of  her  soul.  "  Bartley  !  you  won't  make  fun 


30  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LATHAM. 

of  him  as  you  do  of  some  of  those  people  1 
you  1" 

"Nothing  that  he'll  ever  find  out,"  said  Bartley, 
getting  up  and  brushing  off  the  carpet-lint  from  his 
knees. 


II. 


AFTER  dropping  Bartley  Hubbard  at  the  Events 
building,  Lapham  drove  on  down  Washington  Street 
to  Nankeen  Square  at  the  South  End,  where  he  had 
lived  ever  since  the  mistaken  movement  of  society 
in  that  direction  ceased.  He  had  not  built,  but  had 
bought  very  cheap  of  a  terrified  gentleman  of  good 
extraction  who  discovered  too  late  that  the  South 
End  was  not  the  thing,  and  who  in  the  eagerness  of 
his  flight  to  the  Back  Bay  threw  in  his  carpets  and 
shades  for  almost  nothing.  Mrs.  Lapham  was  even 
better  satisfied  with  their  bargain  than  the  Colonel 
himself,  and  they  had  lived  in  Nankeen  Square  for 
twelve  years.  They  had  seen  the  saplings  planted 
in  the  pretty  oval  round  which  the  houses  were 
built  flourish  up  into  sturdy  young  trees,  and  their 
two  little  girls  in  the  same  period  had  grown  into 
young  ladies  ;  the  Colonel's  tough  frame  had  ex 
panded  into  the  bulk  which  Bartley's  interview  indi 
cated  ;  and  Mrs.  Lapham,  while  keeping  a  more 
youthful  outline,  showed  the  sharp  print  of  the 
crow's-foot  at  the  corners  of  her  motherly  eyes,  and 
certain  slight  creases  in  her  wholesome  cheeks. 

The  fact  that  they  lived  in  an  unfashionable  neigh- 
si 


32  TKE  RISE  OF 

bourhood  was  something  that  they  had  never  been 
made  to  feel  to  their  personal  disadvantage,  and  they 
had  hardly  •  known  it  till  the  summer  before  this 
story  opens,  when  Mrs.  Lapham  and  her  daughter 
Irene  had  met  some  other  Bostonians  far  from 
Boston,  who  made  it  memorable.  They  were  people 
whom  chance  had  brought  for  the  time  under  a 
singular  obligation  to  the  Lapham  ladies,  and  they 
were  gratefully  recognisant  of  it.  They  had  ven 
tured — a  mother  and  two  daughters — as  far  as  a 
rather  wild  little  Canadian  watering-place  on  the 
St.  Lawrence,  below  Quebec,  and  had  arrived  some 
days  before  their  son  and  brother  was  expected  to 
join  them.  Two  of  their  trunks  had  gone  astray, 
and  on  the  night  of  their  arrival  the  mother  was 
taken  violently  ill.  Mrs.  Lapham  came  to  their 
help,  with  her  skill  as  nurse,  and  with  the  abun 
dance  of  her  own  and  her  daughter's  wardrobe,  and 
a  profuse,  single-hearted  kindness.  When  a  doctor 
could  be  got  at,  he  said  that  but  for  Mrs.  Lapham's 
timely  care,  the  lady  would  hardly  have  lived.  He 
was  a  very  effusive  little  Frenchman,  and  fancied  he 
was  saying  something  very  pleasant  to  everybody. 

A  certain  intimacy  inevitably  followed,  and  when 
the  son  came  he  was  even  more  grateful  than  the 
others.  Mrs.  Lapham  could  not  quite  understand 
why  he  should  be  as  attentive  to  her  as  to  Irene ; 
but  she  compared  him  with  other  young  men  about 
the  place,  and  thought  him  nicer  than  any  of  them. 
She  had  not  the  means  of  a  wider  comparison  ;  for 
in  Boston,  with  all  her  husband's  prosperity,  they 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  33 

had  not  had  a  social  life.  Their  first  years  there 
were  given  to  careful  getting  on  Lapham's  part,  and 
careful  saving  on  his  wife's.  Suddenly  the  money 
began  to  come  so  abundantly  that  she  need  not 
save  ;  and  then  they  did  not  know  what  to  do  with 
it.  A  certain  amount  could  be  spent  on  horses, 
and  Lapham  spent  it ;  his  wife  spent  on  rich  and 
rather  ugly  clothes  and  a  luxury  of  household 
appointments.  Lapham  had  not  yet  reached  the 
picture-buying  stage  of  the  rich  man's  development, 
but  they  decorated  their  house  with  the  costliest 
and  most  abominable  frescoes ;  they  went  upon 
journeys,  and  lavished  upon  cars  and  hotels ;  they 
gave  with  both  hands  to  their  church  and  to  all  the 
charities  it  brought  them  acquainted  with  ;  but  they 
did  not  know  how  to  spend  on  society.  Up  to  a 
certain  period  Mrs.  Lapham  had  the  ladies  of  her 
neighbourhood  in  to  tea,  as  her  mother  had  done  in 
the  country  in  her  younger  days.  Lapham's  idea  of 
hospitality  was  still  to  bring  a  heavy-buying  cus 
tomer  home  to  pot-luck ;  neither  of  them  imagined 
dinners. 

Their  two  girls  had  gone  to  the  public  schools, 
where  they  had  not  got  on  as  fast  as  some  of  the 
other  girls  ;  so  that  they  were  a  year  behind  in 
graduating  from  the  grammar-school,  where  Lapham 
thought  that  they  had  got  education  enough.  His 
wife  was  of  a  different  mind  ;  she  would  have  liked 
them  to  go  to  some  private  school  for  their  finishing. 
But  Irene  did  not  care  for  study  ;  she  preferred 
house-keeping,  and  both  the  sisters  were  afraid  of 
c 


34  THE  RISE  OF 

being  snubbed  by  the  other  girls,  who  were  of  a  differ 
ent  sort  from  the  girls  of  the  grammar-school ;  these 
were  mostly  from  the  parks  and  squares,  like  them 
selves.  It  ended  in  their  going  part  of  a  year.  But 
the  elder  had  an  odd  taste  of  her  own  for  reading, 
and  she  took  some  private  lessons,  and  read  books 
out  of  the  circulating  library ;  the  whole  family  were 
amazed  at  the  number  she  read,  and  rather  proud 
of  it. 

They  were  not  girls  who  embroidered  or  aban 
doned  themselves  to  needle-work.  Irene  spent  her 
abundant  leisure  in  shopping  for  herself  and  her 
mother,  of  whom  both  daughters  made  a  kind  of  idol, 
buying  her  caps  and  laces  out  of  their  pin-money, 
and  getting  her  dresses  far  beyond  her  capacity  to 
wear.  Irene  dressed  herself  very  stylishly,  and  spent 
hours  on  her  toilet  every  day.  Her  sister  had  a 
simpler  taste,  and,  if  she  had  done  altogether  as  she 
liked,  might  even  have  slighted  dress.  They  all 
three  took  long  naps  every  day,  and  sat  hours 
together  minutely  discussing  what  they  saw  out  of 
the  window.  In  her  self-guided  search  for  self- 
improvement,  the  elder  sister  went  to  many  church 
lectures  on  a  vast  variety  of  secular  subjects,  and 
usually  came  home  with  a  comic  account  of  them, 
and  that  made  more  matter  of  talk  for  the  whole 
family.  She  could  make  fun  of  nearly  everything ; 
Irene  complained  that  she  scared  away  the  young 
men  whom  they  got  acquainted  with  -at  the  dancing- 
school  sociables.  They  were,  perhaps,  not  the  wisest 
young  men. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  35 

The  girls  had  learned  to  dance  at  Papanti's ;  but 
they  had  not  belonged  to  the  private  classes.  They 
did  not  even  know  of  them,  and  a  great  gulf  divided 
them  from  those  who  did.  Their  father  did  not  like 
company,  except  such  as  came  informally  in  their 
way ;  and  their  mother  had  remained  too  rustic  to 
know  how  to  attract  it  in  the  sophisticated  city 
fashion.  None  of  them  had  grasped  the  idea  of 
European  travel ;  but  they  had  gone  about  to  moun 
tain  and  sea-side  resorts,  the  mother  and  the  two  girls, 
where  they  witnessed  the  spectacle  which  such  resorts 
present  throughout  New  England,  of  multitudes  of 
girls,  lovely,  accomplished,  exquisitely  dressed,  humbly 
glad  of  the  presence  of  any  sort  of  young  man  ;  but 
the  Laphams  had  no  skill  or  courage  to  make  them 
selves  noticed,  far  less  courted  by  the  solitary  invalid, 
or  clergyman,  or  artist.  They  lurked  helplessly  about 
in  the  hotel  parlours,  looking  on  and  not  knowing 
how  to  put  themselves  forward.  Perhaps  they  did 
not  care  a  great  deal  to  do  so.  They  had  not  a  con 
ceit  of  themselves,  but  a  sort  of  content  in  their  own 
ways  that  one  may  notice  in  certain  families.  The 
very  strength  of  their  mutual  affection  was  a  barrier 
to  worldly  knowledge  ;  they  dressed  for  one  another ; 
they  equipped  their  house  for  their  own  satisfaction ; 
they  lived  richly  to  themselves,  not  because  they 
were  selfish,  but  because  they  did  not  know  how  to 
do  otherwise.  The  elder  daughter  did  not  care  for 
society,  apparently.  The  younger,  who  was  but 
three  years  younger,  was  not  yet  quite  old  enough  to 
be  ambitious  of  it.  With  all  her  wonderful  beauty, 


36  THE  RISE  OF 

she  had  an  innocence  almost  vegetable.  When  her 
beauty,  which  in  its  immaturity  was  crude  and  harsh, 
suddenly  ripened,  she  bloomed  and  glowed  with  the 
unconsciousness  of  a  flower  ;  she  not  merely  did  not 
feel  herself  admired,  but  hardly  knew  herself  dis 
covered.  If  she  dressed  well,  perhaps  too  well,  it 
was  because  she  had  the  instinct  of  dress ;  but  till 
she  met  this-  young  man  who  was  so  nice  to  her 
at  Baie  St.  Paul,  she  had  scarcely  lived  a  detached, 
individual  life,  so  wholly  had  she  depended  on  her 
mother  and  her  sister  for  her  opinions,  almost  her 
sensations.  She  took  account  of  everything  he  did 
and  said,  pondering  it,  and  trying  to  make  out  ex 
actly  what  he  meant,  to  the  inflection  of  a  syllable, 
the  slightest  movement  or  gesture.  In  this  way 
she  began  for  the  first  time  to  form  ideas  which 
she  had  not  derived  from  her  family,  and  they  were 
none  the  less  her  own  because  they  were  often  mis 
taken. 

Some  of  the  things  that  he  partly  said,  partly 
looked,  she  reported  to  her  mother,  and  they  talked 
them  over,  as  they  did  everything  relating  to  these 
new  acquaintances,  and  wrought  them  into  the  novel 
point  of  view  which  they  were  acquiring.  When 
Mrs.  Lapham  returned  home,  she  submitted  all  the 
accumulated  facts  of  the  case,  and  all  her  own  con 
jectures,  to  her  husband,  and  canvassed  them  anew. 

At  first  he  was  disposed  to  regard  the  whole  affair 
as  of  small  importance,  and  she  had  to  insist  a  little 
beyond  her  own  convictions  in  order  to  counteract 
his  indifference. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  37 

"  Well,  I  can  tell  you,"  she  said,  "  that  if  you 
think  they  were  not  the  nicest  people  you  ever  saw, 
you  're  mightily  mistaken.  They  had  about  the 
best  manners ;  and  they  had  been  everywhere,  and 
knew  everything.  I  declare  it  made  me  feel  as  if 
we  had  always  lived  in  the  backwoods.  I  don't 
know  but  the  mother  and  the  daughters  would  have 
let  you  feel  so  a  little,  if  they  'd  showed  out  all  they 
thought ;  but  they  never  did  ;  and  the  son — well,  I 
can't  express  it,  Silas !  But  that  young  man  had 
about  perfect  ways." 

"  Seem  struck  up  on  Irene  1 "  asked  the  Colonel. 

"  How  can  /  tell  1  He  seemed  just  about  as  much 
struck  up  on  me.  Anyway,  he  paid  me  as  much 
attention  as  he  did  her.  Perhaps  it 's  more  the 
way,  now,  to  notice  the  mother  than  it  used  to 
be." 

Lapham  ventured  no  conjecture,  but  asked,  as  he 
had  asked  already,  who  the  people  were. 

Mrs.  Lapham  repeated  their  name.  Lapham 
nodded  his  head.  "  Do  you  know  them  ?  What 
business  is  he  in  1 " 

"  I  guess  he  ain't  in  anything,"  said  Lapham. 

"  They  were  very  nice,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham  impar 
tially. 

"  Well,  they  'd  ought  to  be,"  returned  the  Colonel. 
"  Never  done  anything  else." 

"  They  didn't  seem  stuck  up,"  urged  his  wife. 

"  They  'd  no  need  to — with  you.  I  could  buy  him 
and  sell  him,  twice  over." 

This  answer  satisfied  Mrs.    Lapham  rather  with 


38  THE  RISE  OF 

the  fact  than  with  her  husband.  "  Well,  I  guess  I 
wouldn't  brag,  Silas,"  she  said. 

In  the  winter  the  ladies  of  this  family,  who  re 
turned  to  town  very  late,  came  to  call  on  Mrs. 
Lapham.  They  were  again  very  polite.  But  the 
mother  let  drop,  in  apology  for  their  calling  almost 
at  nightfall,  that  the  coachman  had  not  known  the 
way  exactly. 

"  Nearly  all  our  friends  are  on  the  New  Land  or 
on  the  Hill." 

There  was  a  barb  in  this  that  rankled  after  the 
ladies  had  gone ;  and  on  comparing  notes  with  her 
daughter,  Mrs.  Lapham  found  that  a  barb  had  been 
left  to  rankle  in  her  mind  also. 

"  They  said  they  had  never  been  in  this  part  of 
the  town  before." 

Upon  a  strict  search  of  her  memory,  Irene  could 
not  report  that  the  fact  had  been  stated  with  any 
thing  like  insinuation,  but  it  was  that  which  gave 
it  a  more  penetrating  effect. 

"  Oh,  well,  of  course,"  said  Lapham,  to  whom 
these  facts  were  referred.  "  Those  sort  of  people 
haven't  got  much  business  up  our  way,  and  they 
don't  come.  It 's  a  fair  thing  all  round.  We  don't 
trouble  the  Hill  or  the  New  Land  much." 

"  We  know  where  they  are,"  suggested  his  wife 
thoughtfully. 

"  Yes,"  assented  the  Colonel.  "  /  know  where 
they  are  I  've  got  a  lot  of  land  over  on  the  Back 


"  You  have  ?"  eagerly  demanded  his  wife. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  39 

"Want  me  to  build  on  it?"  he  asked  in  reply, 
with  a  quizzical  smile. 

"  I  guess  we  can  get  along  here  for  a  while." 

This  was  at  night.  In  the  morning  Mrs.  Lapham 
said — 

"  I  suppose  we  ought  to  do  the  best  we  can  for 
the  children,  in  every  way." 

"  I  supposed  we  always  had,"  replied  her  hus 
band. 

"  Yes,  we  have,  according  to  our  light." 

"  Have  you  got  some  new  light  ? " 

"I  don't  know  as  it's  light.  But  if  the  girls  are 
going  to  keep  on  living  in  Boston  and  marry  here, 
I  presume  we  ought  to  try  to  get  them  into  society, 
some  way;  or  ought  to  do  something." 

"  Well,  who  's  ever  done  more  for  their  children 
than  we  have  ? "  demanded  Lapham,  with  a  pang  at 
the  thought  that  he  could  possibly  have  been  out 
done.  "  Don't  they  have  everything  they  want  ? 
Don't  they  dress  just  as  you  say  1  Don't  you  go 
everywhere  with  'em  1  Is  there  ever  anything 
going  on  that 's  worth  while  that  they  don't  see  it 
or  hear  it  ?  /  don't  know  what  you  mean.  Why 
don't  you  get  them  into  society  ?  There 's  money 
enough  !" 

"  There  's  got  to  be  something  besides  money,  I 
guess,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  with  a  hopeless  sigh.  "  I 
presume  we  didn't  go  to  work  just  the  right  way 
about  their  schooling.  We  ought  to  have  got  them 
into  some  school  where  they  'd  have  got  acquainted 
with  city  girls — girls  who  could  help  them  along. 


40  THE  RISE  OF 

Nearly  everybody  at  Miss  Smillie's  was  from  some 
where  else." 

"  Well,  it 's  pretty  late  to  think  about  that  now," 
grumbled  Lapham. 

"  And  we  Ve  always  gone  our  own  way,  and  not 
looked  out  for  the  future.  We  ought  to  have  gone 
out  more,  and  had  people  come  to  the  house.  No 
body  comes." 

"  Well,  is  that  my  fault  ?  I  guess  nobody  ever 
makes  people  welcomer." 

"  We  ought  to  have  invited  company  more." 

"Why  don't  you  do  it  now?  If  it's  for  the 
girls,  I  don't  care  if  you  have  the  house  full  all  the 
while." 

Mrs.  Lapham  was  forced  to  a  confession  full  of 
humiliation.  "  I  don't  know  who  to  ask." 

"  Well,  you  can't  expect  me  to  tell  you." 

"  No  ;  we  're  both  country  people,  and  we  Ve  kept 
our  country  ways,  and  we  don't,  either  of  us,  know 
what  to  do.  You  've  had  to  work  so  hard,  and  your 
luck  was  so  long  coming,  and  then  it  came  with 
such  a  rush,  that  we  haven't  had  any  chance  to  learn 
what  to  do  with  it.  It 's  just  the  same  with  Irene's 
looks  ;  I  didn't  expect  she  was  ever  going  to  have 
any,  she  was  such  a  plain  child,  and,  all  at  once, 
she 's  blazed  out  this  way.  As  long  as  it  was  Pen 
that  didn't  seem  to  care  for  society,  I  didn't  give 
much  mind  to  it.  But  I  can  see  it's  going  to  be 
different  with  Irene.  I  don't  believe  but  what 
we  're  in  the  wrong  neighbourhood." 

"  Well,"  said  the  Colonel,  "  there  ain't  a  prettier 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  41 

lot  on  the  Back  Bay  than  mine.  It 's  ^on  the  water 
side  of  Beacon,  and  it 's  twenty-eight  feet  wide  and 
a  hundred  and  fifty  deep.  Let's  build  on  it." 

Mrs.  Lapham  was  silent  a  while.  "  No,"  she  said 
finally  ;  "  we  Ve  always  got  along  well  enough  here, 
and  I  guess  we  better  stay." 

At  breakfast  she  said  casually:  "Girls,  how 
would  you  like  to  have  your  father  build  on  the 
New  Land ?" 

The  girls  said  they  did  not  know.  It  was  more 
convenient  to  the  horse-cars  where  they  were. 

Mrs.  Lapham  stole  a  look  of  relief  at  her  husband, 
and  nothing  more  was  said  of  the  matter. 

The  mother  of  the  family  who  had  called  upon 
Mrs.  Lapham  brought  her  husband's  cards,  and 
when  Mrs.  Lapham  returned  the  visit  she  was  in 
some  trouble  about  the  proper  form  of  acknowledg 
ing  the  civility.  The  Colonel  had  no  card  but  a 
business  card,  which  advertised  the  principal  depot 
and  the  several  agencies  of  the  mineral  paint ;  and 
Mrs.  Lapham  doubted,  till  she  wished  to  goodness 
that  she  had  never  seen  nor  heard  of  those  people, 
whether  to  ignore  her  husband  in  the  transaction 
altogether,  or  to  write  his  name  on  her  own  card. 
She  decided  finally  upon  this  measure,  and  she  Had 
the  relief  of  not  finding  the  family  at  home.  As 
far  as  she  could  judge,  Irene  seemed  to  suffer  a  little 
disappointment  from  the  fact. 

For  several  months  there  was  no  communication 
between  the  families.  Then  there  came  to  Nankeen 
Square  a  lithographed  circular  from  the  people  on 


42  THE  RISE  OF 

the  Hill,  signed  in  ink  by  the  mother,  and  afford 
ing  Mrs.  Lapham  an  opportunity  to  subscribe  for  a 
charity  of  undeniable  merit  and  acceptability.  She 
submitted  it  to  her  husband,  who  promptly  drew  a 
cheque  for  five  hundred  dollars. 

She  tore  it  in  two.  "  I  will  take  a  cheque  for  a 
hundred,  Silas,"  she  said. 

"  Why  ?"  he  asked,  looking  up  guiltily  at  her. 

"  Because  a  hundred  is  enough  ;  and  I  don't  want 
to  show  off  before  them." 

"  Oh,  I  thought  may  be  you  did.  Well,  Pert," 
he  added,  having  satisfied  human  nature  by  the 
preliminary  thrust,  "  I  guess  you  're  about  right. 
When  do  you  want  I  should  begin  to  build  on 
Beacon  Street ) "  He  handed  her  the  new  cheque, 
where  she  stood  over  him,  and  then  leaned  back  in 
his  chair  and  looked  up  at  her. 

"  I  don't  want  you  should  begin  at  all.  What  do 
you  mean,  Silas  ?"  She  rested  against  the  side  of 
his  desk. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  mean  anything.  But 
shouldn't  you  like  to  build  ?  Everybody  builds,  at 
least  once  in  a  lifetime." 

"  Where  is  your  lot  1  They  say  it 's  unhealthy, 
over  there." 

Up  to  a  certain  point  in  their  prosperity  Mrs. 
Lapham  had  kept  strict  account  of  all  her  husband's 
affairs ;  but  as  they  expanded,  and  ceased  to  be  of 
the  retail  nature  with  which  women  successfully 
grapple,  the  intimate  knowledge  of  them  made  her 
nervous.  There  was  a  period  in  which  she  felt  that 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  43 

they  were  being  ruined,  but  the  crash  had  not  come ; 
and,  since  his  great  success,  she  had  abandoned 
herself  to  a  blind  confidence  in  her  husband's  judg 
ment,  which  she  had  hitherto  felt  needed  her 
revision.  He  came  and  went,  day  by  day,  unques 
tioned.  He  bought  and  sold  and  got  gain.  She 
knew  that  he  would  tell  her  if  ever  things  went 
wrong,  and  he  knew  that  she  would  ask  him 
whenever  she  was  anxious. 

"It  ain't  unhealthy  where  I've  bought,"  said 
Lapham,  rather  enjoying  her  insinuation.  "  I 
looked  after  that  when  I  was  trading ;  and  I  guess 
it 's  about  as  healthy  on  the  Back  Bay  as  it  is 
here,  anyway.  I  got  that  lot  for  you,  Pert;  I 
thought  you  'd  want  to  build  on  the  Back  Bay  some 
day." 

"Pshaw!"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  deeply  pleased 
inwardly,  but  not  going  to  show  it,  as  she  would 
have  said.  "  I  guess  you  want  to  build  there  your 
self."  She  insensibly  got  a  little  nearer  to  her 
husband.  They  liked  to  talk  to  each  other  in  that 
blunt  way ;  it  is  the  New  England  way  of  expressing 
perfect  confidence  and  tenderness. 

"  Well,  I  guess  I  do,"  said  Lapham,  not  insisting 
upon  the  unselfish  view  of  the  matter.  "I  always 
did  like  the  water  side  of  Beacon.  There  ain't  a 
sightlier  place  in  the  world  for  a  house.  And  some 
day  there's  bound  to  be  a  drive- way  all  along  behind 
them  houses,  between  them  and  the  water,  and  then 
a  lot  there  is  going  to  be  worth  the  gold  that  will 
cover  it — coin.  I've  had  offers  for  that  lot,  Pert, 


44  THE  RISE  OF 

twice  over  what  I  give  for  it.  Yes,  I  have.  Don't 
you  want  to  ride  over  there  some  afternoon  with  me 
and  see  it1?" 

"  I  'm  satisfied  where  we  be,  Si,"  said  Mrs. 
Lapham,  recurring  to  the  parlance  of  her  youth  in 
her  pathos  at  her  husband's  kindness.  She  sighed 
anxiously,  for  she  felt  the  trouble  a  woman  knows 
in  view  of  any  great  change.  They  had  often  talked 
of  altering  over  the  house  in  which  they  lived,  but 
they  had  never  come  to  it;  and  they  had  often 
talked  of  building,  but  it  had  always  been  a  house 
in  the  country  that  they  had  thought  of.  "I  wish 
you  had  sold  that  lot." 

"  I  hain't,"  said  the  Colonel  briefly. 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  feel  much  like  changing  our 
way  of  living." 

"Guess  we  could  live  there  pretty  much  as  we 
live  here.  There 's  all  kinds  of  people  on  Beacon 
Street ;  you  mustn't  think  they  're  all  big-bugs.  I 
know  one  party  that  lives  in  a  house  he  built  to  sell, 
and  his  wife  don't  keep  any  girl.  You  can  have  just 
as  much  style  there  as  you  want,  or  just  as  little. 
I  guess  we  live  as  well  as  most  of  'em  now,  and  set 
as  good  a  table.  And  if  you  come  to  style,  I  don't 
know  as  anybody  has  got  more  of  a  right  to  put  it 
on  than  what  we  have." 

"  Well,  I  don't  want  to  build  on  Beacon  Street, 
Si,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham  gently. 

"  Just  as  you  please,  Persis.  I  ain't  in  any  hurry 
to  leave. ' 

Mrs.  Lapham  stood  flapping  the  cheque  which  she 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  45 

held  in  her  right  hand  against  the  edge  of  her 
left. 

The  Colonel  still  sat  looking  up  at  her  face,  and 
watching  the  effect  of  the  poison  of  ambition  which 
he  had  artfully  instilled  into  her  mind. 

She  sighed  again — a  yielding  sigh.  "  What  are 
you  going  to  do  this  afternoon  ? " 

"  I  'm  going  to  take  a  turn  on  the  Brighton  road," 
said  the  Colonel. 

"  I  don't  believe  but  what  I  should  like  to  go 
along,"  said  his  wife. 

"  All  right.  You  hain't  ever  rode  behind  that 
mare  yet,  Pert,  and  I  want  you  should  see  me  let 
her  out  once.  They  say  the  snow 's  all  packed  down 
already,  and  the  going  is  A  1." 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  with  a  cold,  red 
winter  sunset  before  them,  the  Colonel  and  his  wife 
were  driving  slowly  down  Beacon  Street  in  the  light, 
high-seated  cutter,  where,  as  he  said,  they  were  a 
pretty  tight  fit.  He  was  holding  the  mare  in  till 
the  time  came  to  speed  her,  and  the  mare  was 
springily  jolting  over  the  snow,  looking  intelligently 
from  side  to  side,  and  cocking  this  ear  and  that, 
while  from  her  nostrils,  her  head  tossing  easily,  she 
blew  quick,  irregular  whiffs  of  steam. 

"Gay,  ain't  she  1"  proudly  suggested  the  Colonel. 

"  She  is  gay,"  assented  his  wife. 

They  met  swiftly  dashing  sleighs,  and  let  them 
pass  on  either  hand,  down  the  beautiful  avenue 
narrowing  with  an  admirably  even  sky-line  in  the 
perspective.  They  were  not  in  a  hurry.  The  mare 


46  THE  RISE  OF 

jounced  easily  along,  and  they  talked  of  the  differ 
ent  houses  on  either  side  of  the  way.  They  had  a 
crude  taste  in  architecture,  and  they  admired  the 
worst.  There  were  women's  faces  at  many  of  the 
handsome  windows,  and  once  in  a  while  a  young 
man  on  the  pavement  caught  his  hat  suddenly  from 
his  head,  and  bowed  in  response  to  some  salutation 
from  within. 

"  I  don't  think  our  girls  would  look  very  bad 
behind  one  of  those  big  panes,"  said  the  Colonel. 

"  No,"  said  his  wife  dreamily. 

"  Where  'a  the  young  man  1  Did  he  come  with 
them?" 

"  No ;  he  was  to  spend  the  winter  with  a  friend 
of  his  that  has  a  ranch  in  Texas.  I  guess  he  's  got 
to  do  something." 

"Yes;  gentlemaning  as  a  profession  has  got  to 
play  out  in  a  generation  or  two." 

Neither  of  them  spoke  of  the  lot,  though  Lapham 
knew  perfectly  well  what  his  wife  had  come  with 
him  for,  and  she  was  aware  that  he  knew  it.  The 
time  came  when  he  brought  the  mare  down  to  a 
walk,  and  then  slowed  up  almost  to  a  stop,  while 
they  both  turned  their  heads  to  the  right  and  looked 
at  the  vacant  lot,  through  which  showed  the  frozen 
stretch  of  the  Back  Bay,  a  section  of  the  Long 
Bridge,  and  the  roofs  and  smoke-stacks  of  Charles- 
town. 

"  Yes,  it 's  sightly,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  lifting  her 
hand  from  the  reins,  on  which  she  had  unconsciously 
laid  it. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  47 

Lapham  said  nothing,  but  he  let  the  mare  out  a 
little. 

The  sleighs  and  cutters  were  thickening  round 
them.  On  the  Milldam  it  became  difficult  to  restrict 
the  mare  to  the  long,  slow  trot  into  which  he  let  her 
break.  The  beautiful  landscape  widened  to  right 
and  left  of  them,  with  the  sunset  redder  and  redder, 
over  the  low,  irregular  hills  before  them.  They 
crossed  the  Milldam  into  Longwood  ;  and  here,  from 
the  crest  of  the  first  upland,  stretched  two  endless 
lines,  in  which  thousands  of  cutters  went  and  came. 
Some  of  the  drivers  were  already  speeding  their 
horses,  and  these  shot  to  and  fro  on  inner  lines, 
between  the  slowly  moving  vehicles  on  either  side  of 
the  road.  Here  and  there  a  burly  mounted  police 
man,  bulging  over  the  pommel  of  his  M'Clellan 
saddle,  jolted  by,  silently  gesturing  and  directing 
the  course,  and  keeping  it  all  under  the  eye  of  the 
law.  It  was  what  Bartley  Hubbard  called  "  a  carni 
val  of  fashion  and  gaiety  on  the  Brighton  road,"  in 
his  account  of  it.  But  most  of  the  people  in  those 
elegant  sleighs  and  cutters  had  so  little  the  air  of 
the  great  world  that  one  knowing  it  at  all  must 
have  wondered  where  they  and  their  money  came 
from ;  and  the  gaiety  of  the  men,  at  least,  was  ex 
pressed,  like  that  of  Colonel  Lapham,  in  a  grim 
almost  fierce,  alertness  ;  the  women  wore  an  air  of 
courageous  apprehension.  At  a  certain  point  the 
Colonel  said,  "  I  'm  going  to  let  her  out,  Pert,"  and 
he  lifted  and  then  dropped  the  reins  lightly  on  the 
mare's  back. 


48  THE  RISE  OF 

She  understood  the  signal,  and,  as  an  admirer 
said,  "  she  laid  down  to  her  work."  Nothing  in  the 
immutable  iron  of  Lapham's  face  betrayed  his  sense 
of  triumph  as  the  mare  left  everything  behind  her 
on  the  road.  Mrs.  Lapham,  if  she  felt  fear,  was  too 
busy  holding  her  flying  wraps  about  her,  and  shield 
ing  her  face  from  the  scud  of  ice  flung  from  the  mare's 
heels,  to  betray  it ;  except  for  the  rush  of  her  feet, 
the  mare  was  as  silent  as  the  people  behind  her ;  the 
muscles  of  her  back  and  thighs  worked  more  and 
more  swiftly,  like  some  mechanism  responding  to  an 
alien  force,  and  she  shot  to  the  end  of  the  course,  graz 
ing  a  hundred  encountered  and  rival  sledges  in  her 
passage,  but  unmolested  by  the  policemen,  who  pro 
bably  saw  that  the  mare  and  the  Colonel  knew  what 
they  were  about,  and,  at  any  rate,  were  not  the  sort 
of  men  to  interfere  with  trotting  like  that.  At  the 
end  of  the  heat  Lapham  drew  her  in,  and  turned  off 
on  a  side  street  into  Brookline. 

"  Tell  you  what,  Pert,"  he  said,  as  if  they  had  been 
quietly  jogging  along,  with  time  for  uninterrupted 
thought  since  he  last  spoke,  "I've  about  made  up 
my  mind  to  build  on  that  lot." 

"  All  right,  Silas,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham ;  "  I  suppose 
you  know  what  you  're  about.  Don't  build  on  it  for 
me,  that's  all." 

When  she  stood  in  the  hall  at  home,  taking  off  her 
things,  she  said  to  the  girls,  who  were  helping  her, 
"  Some  day  your  father  will  get  killed  with  that 
mare." 

"Did  he  speed  her?"  asked  Penelope,  the  elder. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  49 

She  was  named  after  her  grandmother,  who  had  in 
her  turn  inherited  from  another  ancestress  the  name 
of  the  Homeric  matron  whose  peculiar  merits  won 
her  a  place  even  among  the  Puritan  Faiths,  Hopes, 
Temperances,  and  Prudences.  Penelope  was  the 
girl  whose  odd  serious  face  had  struck  Bartley 
Hubbard  in  the  photograph  of  the  family  group 
Lapham  showed  him  on  the  day  of  the  interview. 
Her  large  eyes,  like  her  hair,  were  brown  ;  they  had 
the  peculiar  look  of  near-sighted  eyes  which  is  called 
mooning  ;  her  complexion  was  of  a  dark  pallor. 

Her  mother  did  not  reply  to  a  question  which 
might  be  considered  already  answered.  "  He  says 
he's  going  to  build  on  that  lot  of  his,"  she  next 
remarked,  unwinding  the  long  veil  which  she  had 
tied  round  her  neck  to  hold  her  bonnet  on.  She  put 
her  hat  and  cloak  on  the  hall  table,  to  be  carried 
upstairs  later,  and  they  all  went  in  to  tea  :  creamed 
oysters,  birds,  hot  biscuit,  two  kinds  of  cake,  and 
dishes  of  stewed  and  canned  fruit  and  honey.  The 
women  dined  alone  at  one,  and  the  Colonel  at  the 
same  hour  down-town.  But  he  liked  a  good  hot 
meal  when  he  got  home  in  the  evening.  The  house 
flared  with  gas ;  and  the  Colonel,  before  he  sat  down, 
went  about  shutting  the  registers,  through  which  a 
welding  heat  came  voluming  up  from  the  furnace. 

"I'll  be  the  death  of  that  darkey  yet"  he  said, 
'  if  he  don't  stop  making  on  such  a  fire.  The  only 
way  to  get  any  comfort  out  of  your  furnace  is  to 
take  care  of  it  yourself." 

"  Well,"  answered  his  wife  from  behind  the  tea- 
D 


50  THE  RISE  OP 

pot,  as  he  sat  down  at  table  with  this  threat,  "  there's 
nothing  to  prevent  you,  Si.  And  you  can  shovel  the 
snow  too,  if  you  want  to — till  you  get  over  to 
Beacon  Street,  anyway." 

"  I  guess  I  can  keep  my  own  sidewalk  on  Beacon 
Street  clean,  if  I  take  the  notion." 

"  I  should  like  to  see  you  at  it,"  retorted  his  wife. 

"  Well,  you  keep  a  sharp  lookout,  and  may  be 
you  will." 

Their  taunts  were  really  expressions  of  affection 
ate  pride  in  each  other.  They  liked  to  have  it,  give 
and  take,  that  way,  as  they  would  have  said,  right 
along. 

"  A  man  can  be  a  man  on  Beacon  Street  as  well  as 
anywhere,  I  guess." 

"  Well,  I  '11  do  the  wash,  as  I  used  to  in  Lumber- 
ville,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  I  presume  you  '11  let  me 
have  set  tubs,  Si.  You  know  I  ain't  so  young  any 
more."  She  passed  Irene  a  cup  of  Oolong  tea, — none 
of  them  had  a  sufficiently  cultivated  palate  for  Sou 
chong, — and  the  girl  handed  it  to  her  father. 

"  Papa,"  she  asked,  "  you  don't  really  mean  that 
you  're  going  to  build  over  there  ?" 

"  Don't  1 1  You  wait  and  see,"  said  the  Colonel, 
stirring  his  tea. 

"  I  don't  believe'  you  do,"  pursued  the  girl. 

"  Is  that  so  1  I  presume  you  'd  hate  to  have  me. 
Your  mother  does."  He  said  doos,  of  course. 

Penelope  took  the  word.  "  I  go  in  for  it.  I  don't 
see  any  use  in  not  enjoying  money,  if  you  've  got  it 
to  enjoy.  That's  what  it's  for,  I  suppose;  though 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  51 

you  mightn't  always  think  so."  Sne  had  a  slow, 
quaint  way  of  talking,  that  seemed  a  pleasant  per 
sonal  modification  of  some  ancestral  Yankee  drawl, 
and  her  voice  was  low  and  cozy,  and  so  far  from 
being  nasal  that  it  was  a  little  hoarse. 

"  I  guess  the  ayes  has  it,  Pen,"  said  her  father. 
"  How  would  it  do  to  let  Irene  and  your  mother 
stick  in  the  old  place  here,  and  us  go  into  the  new 
house  ]"  At  times  the  Colonel's  grammar  failed 
him. 

The  matter  dropped,  and  the  Laphams  lived  on 
as  before,  with  joking  recurrences  to  the  house  on 
the  water  side  of  Beacon.  The  Colonel  seemed  less 
in  earnest  than  any  of  them  about  it ;  but  that  was 
his  way,  his  girls  said  ;  you  never  could  tell  when 
he  really  meant  a  thing. 


III. 


TOWARD  the  end  of  the  winter  there  came  a  news 
paper,  addressed  to  Miss  Irene  Lapham ;  it  proved 
to  be  a  Texas  newspaper,  with  a  complimentary 
account  of  the  ranch  of  the  Hon.  Loring  G.  Stanton, 
which  the  representative  of  the  journal  had  visited. 

"It  must  be  his  friend,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  to 
whom  her  daughter  brought  the  paper ;  "  the  one 
he 's  staying  with." 

The  girl  did  not  say  anything,  but  she  carried  the 
paper  to  her  room,  where  she  scanned  every  line  of 
it  for  another  name.  She  did  not  find  it,  but  she 
cut  the  notice  out  and  stuck  it  into  the  side  of  her 
mirror,  where  she  could  read  it  every  morning  when 
she  brushed  her  hair,  and  the  last  thing  at  night 
when  she  looked  at  herself  in  the  glass  just  before 
turning  off  the  gas.  Her  sister  often  read  it  aloud, 
standing  behind  her  and  rendering  it  with  elocu 
tionary  effects. 

"  The  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  a  love-letter  in  the 
form  of  a  puff  to  a  cattle-ranch.  But  perhaps  that 's 
the  style  on  the  Hill." 

Mrs.  Lapham  told  her  husband  of  the  arrival  of 

52 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  53 

the  paper,  treating  the  fact  with  an  importance  that 
he  refused  to  see  in  it  • 

"  How  do  you  know  the  fellow  sent  it,  anyway  1' 
he  demanded. 

"  Oh,  I  know  he  did." 

"  I  don't  see  why  he  couldn't  write  to  'Rene,  if  he 
really  meant  anything." 

"  Well,  I  guess  that  wouldn't  be  their  way,"  said 
Mrs.  Lapham  ;  she  did  not  at  all  know  what  their 
way  would  be. 

When  the  spring  opened  Colonel  Lapham  showed 
that  he  had  been  in  earnest  about  building  on  the 
New  Land.  His  idea  of  a  house  was  a  brown-stone 
front,  four  stories  high,  and  a  French  roof  with  an 
air-chamber  above.  Inside,  there  was  to  be  a  re 
ception-room  on  the  street  and  a  dining-room  back. 
The  parlours  were  be  on  the  second  floor,  and 
finished  in  black  walnut  or  party-coloured  paint. 
The  chambers  were  to  be  on  the  three  floors  above, 
front  and  rear,  with  side-rooms  over  the  front  door. 
Black  walnut  was  to  be  used  everywhere  except  in 
the  attic,  which  was  to  be  painted  and  grained  to 
look  like  black  walnut.  The  whole  was  to  be  very 
high-studded,  and  there  were  to  be  handsome  cornices 
and  elaborate  centre-pieces  throughout,  except,  again, 
in  the  attic. 

These  ideas  he  had  formed  from  the  inspection  of 
many  new  buildings  which  he  had  seen  going  up, 
and  which  he  had  a  passion  for  looking  into.  He 
was  confirmed  in  his  ideas  by  a  master  builder  who 
had  put  up  a  great  many  houses  on  the  Back  Bay 


54  THE  RISE  OF 

as  a  speculation,  and  who  told  him  that  if  he  wanted 
to  have  a  house  in  the  style,  that  was  the  way  to 
have  it. 

The  beginnings  of  the  process  by  which  Lapham 
escaped  from  the  master  builder  and  ended  in  the 
hands  of  an  architect  are  so  obscure  that  it  would 
be  almost  impossible  to  trace  them.  But  it  all 
happened,  and  Lapham  promptly  developed  his 
ideas  of  black  walnut  finish,  high  studding,  and 
cornices.  The  architect  was  able  to  conceal  the 
shudder  which  they  must  have  sent  through  him. 
He  was  skilful,  as  nearly  all  architects  are,  in  play 
ing  upon  that  simple  instrument  Man.  He  began 
to  touch  Colonel  Lapham's  stops. 

"Oh,  certainly,  have  the  parlours  high-studded. 
But  you  've  seen  some  of  those  pretty  old-fashioned 
country-houses,  haven't  you,  where  the  entrance-story 
is  very  low-studded?" 

"  Yes,"  Lapham  assented. 

"  Well,  don't  you  think  something  of  that  kind 
would  have  a  very  nice  effect  ?  Have  the  entrance- 
story  low-studded,  and  your  parlours  on  the  next 
floor  as  high  as  you  please.  Put  your  little  recep 
tion-room  here  beside  the  door,  and  get  the  whole 
width  of  your  house  frontage  for  a  square  hall,  and 
an  easy  low-tread  staircase  running  up  three  sides 
of  it.  I'm  sure  Mrs.  Lapham  would  find  it  much 
pleasanter."  The  architect  caught  toward  him  a 
scrap  of  paper  lying  on  the  table  at  which  they  were 
sitting  and  sketched  his  idea.  "  Then  have  your 
dining-room  behind  the  hall,  looking  on  the  water." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  55 

He  glanced  at  Mrs.  Lapham,  who  said,  "  Of  course," 
and  the  architect  went  on— 

"  That  gets  you  rid  of  one  of  those  long,  straight, 
ugly  staircases," — until  that  moment  Lapham  had 
thought  a  long,  straight  staircase  the  chief  ornament 
of  a  house, — "  and  gives  you  an  effect  of  amplitude 
and  space." 

"That's  so!"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  Her  husband 
merely  made  a  noise  in  his  throat. 

"  Then,  were  you  thinking  of  having  your  par 
lours  together,  connected  by  folding  doors  ?  "  asked 
the  architect  deferentially. 

"  Yes,  of  course,"  said  Lapham.  "They're  always 
so,  ain't  they  1 " 

"  Well,  nearly,"  said  the  architect.  "  I  was 
wondering  how  would  it  do  to  make  one  large 
square  room  at  the  front,  taking  the  whole  breadth 
of  the  house,  and,  with  this  hall-space  between,  have 
a  music-room  back  for  the  young  ladies  2 " 

Lapham  looked  helplessly  at  his  wife,  whose 
quicker  apprehension  had  followed  the  architect's 
pencil  with  instant  sympathy.  "  First-rate  !  "  she 
cried. 

The  Colonel  gave  way.  "  I  guess  that  would  do. 
It  '11  be  kind  of  odd,  won't  it  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  architect.  "  Not 
so  odd,  I  hope,  as  the  other  thing  will  be  a  few 
years  from  now."  He  went  on  to  plan  the  rest  of 
the  house,  and  he  showed  himself  such  a  master  in 
regard  to  all  the  practical  details  that  Mrs.  Lapham 
began  to  feel  a  motherly  affection  for  the  young 


56  THE  RISE  OF 

man,  and  her  husband  could  not  deny  in  his  heart 
that  the  fellow  seemed  to  understand  his  business. 
He  stopped  walking  about  the  room,  as  he  had 
begun  to  do  when  the  architect  and  Mrs.  Lapham 
entered  into  the  particulars  of  closets,  drainage, 
kitchen  arrangements,  and  all  that,  and  came  back 
to  the  table.  "I  presume,"  he  said,  "you'll  have 
the  drawing-room  finished  in  black  walnut  1 " 

"  Well,  yes,"  replied  the  architect,  "  if  you  like. 
But  some  less  expensive  wood  can  be  made  just  as 
effective  with  paint.  Of  course  you  can  paint  black 
walnut  too." 

"  Paint  it  ? "  gasped  the  Colonel. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  architect  quietly.  "  White,  or  a 
little  off  white." 

Lapham  dropped  the  plan  he  had  picked  up  from 
the  table.  His  wife  made  a  little  move  toward  him 
of  consolation  or  support 

"  Of  course,"  resumed  the  architect,  I  know 
there  has  been  a  great  craze  for  black  walnut.  But 
it 's  an  ugly  wood ;  and  for  a  drawing-room  there  is 
really  nothing  like  white  paint.  We  should  want  to 
introduce  a  little  gold  here  and  there.  Perhaps  we 
might  run  a  painted  frieze  round  under  the  cornice 
— garlands  of  roses  on  a  gold  ground ;  it  would  tell 
wonderfully  in  a  white  room." 

The  Colonel  returned  less  courageously  to  the 
charge.  "  I  presume  you  '11  want  Eastlake  mantel 
shelves  and  tiles  ? "  He  meant  this  for  a  sarcastic 
thrust  at  a  prevailing  foible  of  the  profession. 

"Well,  no,"  gently  answered  the  architect.     "I 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  57 

was  thinking  perhaps  a  white  marble  chimney-piece, 
treated  in  the  refined  Empire  style,  would  be  the 
thing  for  that  room." 

"  White  marble  ! "  exclaimed  the  Colonel.  "  I 
thought  that  had  gone  out  long  ago." 

"  Eeally  beautiful  things  can't  go  out.  They  may 
disappear  for  a  little  while,  but  they  must  come 
back.  It 's  only  the  ugly  things  that  stay  out  after 
they've  had  their  day." 

Lapham  could  only  venture  very  modestly, 
"  Hard-wood  floors  ? " 

"In  the  music-room,  of  course,"  consented  the 
architect. 

"  And  in  the  drawing-room  ? " 

"  Carpet.  Some  sort  of  moquette,  I  should  say. 
But  I  should  prefer  to  consult  Mrs.  Lapham's  taste 
in  that  matter." 

"  And  in  the  other  rooms  ? " 

"  Oh,  carpets,  of  course." 

"  And- what  about  the  stairs  ? " 

"  Carpet.  And  I  should  have  the  rail  and  banis 
ters  white — banisters  turned  or  twisted." 

The  Colonel  said  under  his  breath,  "  Well,  I  'm 
dumned  ! "  but  he  gave  no  utterance  to  his  astonish 
ment  in  the  architect's  presence.  When  he  went  at 
last, — the  session  did  not  end  till  eleven  o'clock, — 
Lapham  said,  "Well,  Pert,  I  guess  that  f  ellow 's  fifty 
years  behind,  or  ten  years  ahead.  I  wonder  what 
the  Ongpeer  style  is  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  hated  to  ask.  But  he  seemed 
to  understand  what  he  was  talking  about.  I  de- 


58  THE  RISE  OF 

clare,  he  knows  what  a  woman  wants  in  a  house 
better  than  she  does  herself." 

"  And  a  man 's  simply  nowhere  in  comparison," 
said  Lapham.  But  he  respected  a  fellow  who  could 
beat  him  at  every  point,  and  have  a  reason  ready,  as 
this  architect  had ;  and  when  he  recovered  from  the 
daze  into  which  the  complete  upheaval  of  all  his 
preconceived  notions  had  left  him,  he  was  in  a  fit 
state  to  swear  by  the  architect.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  discovered  the  fellow  (as  he  always 
called  him)  and  owned  him  now,  and  the  fellow  did 
nothing  to  disturb  this  impression.  He  entered  into 
that  brief  but  intense  intimacy  with  the  Laphams 
which  the  sympathetic  architect  holds  with  his 
clients.  He  was  privy  to  all  their  differences  of 
opinion  and  all  their  disputes  about  the  house.  He 
knew  just  where  to  insist  upon  his  own  ideas,  and 
where  to  yield.  He  was  really  building  several 
other  houses,  but  he  gave  the  Laphams  the  impres 
sion  that  he  was  doing  none  but  theirs. 

The  work  was  not  begun  till  the  frost  was 
thoroughly  out  of  the  ground,  which  that  year  was 
not  before  the  end  of  April.  Even  then  it  did  not 
proceed  very  rapidly.  Lapham  said  they  might  as 
well  take  their  time  to  it ;  if  they  got  the  walls  up 
and  the  thing  closed  in  before  the  snow  flew,  they 
could  be  working  at  it  all  winter.  It  was  found 
necessary  to  dig  for  the  kitchen ;  at  that  point  the 
original  salt-marsh  lay  near  the  surface,  and  before 
they  began  to  put  in  the  piles  for  the  foundation 
they  had  to  pump.  The  neighbourhood  smelt  like 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  59 

the  hold  of  a  ship  after  a  three  years'  voyage. 
People  who  had  cast  their  fortunes  with  the  New 
Land  went  by  professing  not  to  notice  it;  people 
who  still  "  hung  on  to  the  Hill "  put  their  handker 
chiefs  to  their  noses,  and  told  each  other  the  old 
terrible  stories  of  the  material  used  in  filling  up  the 
Back  Bay. 

Nothing  gave  Lapham  so  much  satisfaction  in  the 
whole  construction  of  his  house  as  the  pile-driving. 
When  this  began,  early  in  the  summer,  he  took  Mrs. 
Lapham  every  day  in  his  buggy  and  drove  round  to 
look  at  it ;  stopping  the  mare  in  front  of  the  lot,  and 
watching  the  operation  with  even  keener  interest 
than  the  little  loafing  Irish  boys  who  superintended 
it  in  force.  It  pleased  him  to  hear  the  portable 
engine  chuckle  out  a  hundred  thin  whiffs  of  steam  in 
carrying  the  big  iron  weight  to  the  top  of  the  frame 
work  above  the  pile,  then  seem  to  hesitate,  and  cough 
once  or  twice  in  pressing  the  weight  against  the 
detaching  apparatus.  There  was  a  moment  in  which 
the  weight  had  the  effect  of  poising  before  it  fell ; 
then  it  dropped  with  a  mighty  whack  on  the  iron- 
bound  head  of  the  pile,  and  drove  it  a  foot  into  the 
earth. 

"By  gracious!"  he  would  say,  "there  ain't  any 
thing  like  that  in  this  world  for  business,  Persis  !" 

Mrs.  Lapham  suffered  him  to  enjoy  the  sight 
twenty  or  thirty  times  before  she  said,  "  Well,  now 
drive  on,  Si." 

By  the  time  the  foundation  was  in  and  the  brick 
walls  had  begun  to  go  up,  there  were  so  few  people 


60  THE  RISE  OF 

left  in  the  neighbourhood  that  she  might  indulge 
with  impunity  her  husband's  passion  for  having  her 
clamber  over  the  floor-timbers  and  the  skeleton  stair 
cases  with  him.  Many  of  the  householders  had 
boarded  up  their  front  doors  before  the  buds  had 
begun  to  swell  and  the  assessor  to  appear  in  early 
May ;  others  had  followed  soon  ;  and  Mrs.  Lapham 
was  as  safe  from  remark  as  if  she  had  been  in  the 
depth  of  the  country.  Ordinarily  she  and  her  girls 
left  town  early  in  July,  going  to  one  of  the  hotels  at 
Nantasket,  where  it  was  convenient  for  the  Colonel 
to  get  to  and  from  his  business  by  the  boat.  But 
this  summer  they  were  all  lingering  a  few  weeks 
later,  under  the  novel  fascination  of  the  new  house, 
as  they  called  it,  as  if  there  were  no  other  in  the 
world. 

Lap'ham  drove  there  with  his  wife  after  he  had  set 
Bartley  Hubbard  down  at  the  Events  office,  but  on 
this  day  something  happened  that  interfered  with 
the  solid  pleasure  they  usually  took  in  going  over 
the  house.  As  the  Colonel  turned  from  casting 
anchor  at  the  mare's  head  with  the  hitching-weight, 
after  helping  his  wife  to  alight,  he  encountered  a 
man  to  whom  he  could  not  help  speaking,  though 
the  man  seemed  to  share  his  hesitation  if  not  his 
reluctance  at  the  necessity.  He  was  a  tallish,  thin 
man,  with  a  dust-coloured  face,  and  a  dead,  clerical 
air,  which  somehow  suggested  at  once  feebleness  and 
tenacity. 

Mrs.  Lapham  held  out  her  hand  to  him. 

"Why,  Mr.  Rogers!"  she  exclaimed;  and  then. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  61 

turning  toward  her  husband,  seemed  to  refer  the  two 
men  to  each  other.  They  shook  hands,  but  Lapham 
did  not  speak.  "  I  didn't  know  you  were  in  Boston," 
pursued  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  Is  Mrs.  Eogers  with  you?" 

"  No,"  said  Mr.  Eogers,  with  a  voice  which  had 
the  flat,  succinct  sound  of  two  pieces  of  wood  clapped 
together.  "  Mrs.  Rogers  is  still  in  Chicago." 

A  little  silence  followed,  and  then  Mrs.  Lapham 
said — 

"  I  presume  you  are  quite  settled  out  there." 

"  No ;  we  have  left  Chicago.  Mrs.  Rogers  has 
merely  remained  to  finish  up  a  little  packing." 

"  Oh,  indeed  !     Are  you  coming  back  to  Boston  ?" 

"  I  cannot  say  as  yet.  We  some  think  of  so 
doing." 

Lapham  turned  away  and  looked  up  at  the  build 
ing.  His  wife  pulled  a  little  at  her  glove,  as  if 
embarrassed,  or  even  pained.  She  tried  to  make  a 
diversion. 

"  We  are  building  a  house,"  she  said,  with  a 
meaningless  laugh. 

"  Oh,  indeed,"  said  Mr.  Rogers,  looking  up  at  it. 

Then  no  one  spoke  again,  and  she  said  helplessly — 

"  If  you  come  to  Boston,  I  hope  I  shall  see  Mrs. 
Rogers." 

"  She  will  be  happy  to  have  you  call,"  said  Mr. 
Rogers. 

He  touched  his  hat-brim,  and  made  a  bow  forward 
rather  than  in  Mrs.  Lapham's  direction. 

She  mounted  the  planking  that  led  into  the  shelter 
of  the  bare  brick  walls,  and  her  husband  slowly 


62  THE  RISE  OF 

followed.  When  she  turned  her  face  toward  him 
her  cheeks  were  burning,  and  tears  that  looked  hot 
stood  in  her  eyes. 

"  You  left  it  all  to  me  ! "  she  cried.  "  Why  couldn't 
you  speak  a  word  1" 

"I  hadn't  anything  to  say  to  him,"  replied  Lapham 
sullenly. 

They  stood  a  while,  without  looking  at  the  work 
which  they  had  come  to  enjoy,  and  without  speaking 
to  each  other. 

"  I  suppose  we  might  as  well  go  on,"  said  Mrs. 
Lapham  at  last,  as  they  returned  to  the  buggy.  The 
Colonel  drove  recklessly  toward  the  Milldam.  His 
wife  kept  her  veil  down  and  her  face  turned  from 
him.  After  a  time  she  put  her  handkerchief  up 
under  her  veil  and  wiped  her  eyes,  and  he  set  his 
teeth  and  squared  his  jaw. 

"  I  don't  see  how  he  always  manages  to  appear 
just  at  the  moment  when  he  seems  to  have  gone 
fairly  out  of  our  lives,  and  blight  everything,"  she 
whimpered. 

"  I  supposed  he  was  dead,"  said  Lapham. 

"  Oh,  don't  say  such  a  thing !  It  sounds  as  if  you 
wished  it." 

"  Why  do  you  mind  it  ?  What  do  you  let  him 
blight  everything  for  ? " 

"  I  can't  help  it,  and  I  don't  believe  I  ever  shall. 
I  don't  know  as  his  being  dead  would  help  it  any. 
I  can't  ever  see  him  without  feeling  just  as  I  did  at 
first." 

"  I  tell  you,"  said  Lapham,  "  it  was  a  perfectly 


SILAS  LAPHAM,  63 

square  thing.  And  I  wish,  once  for  all,  you  would 
quit  bothering  about  it.  My  conscience  is  easy  as 
far  as  he 's  concerned,  and  it  always  was." 

"  And  I  can't  look  at  him  without  feeling  as  if 
you  'd  ruined  him,  Silas." 

"  Don't  look  at  him,  then,"  said  her  husband,  with 
a  scowl.  "  I  want  you  should  recollect  in  the  first 
place,  Persis,  that  I  never  wanted  a  partner." 

"  If  he  hadn't  put  his  money  in  when  he  did, 
ou'd  'a'  broken  down." 

"  Well,  he  got  his  money  out  again,  and  more, 
too,"  said  the  Colonel,  with  a  sulky  weariness. 

"  He  didn't  want  to  take  it  out." 

"  I  gave  him  his  choice  :  buy  out  or  go  out." 

"  You  know  he  couldn't  buy  out  then.  It  was  no 
choice  at  all." 

"  It  was  a  business  chance." 

"No;  you  had  better  face  the  truth,  Silas.  It 
was  no  chance  at  all.  You  crowded  him  out.  A 
man  that  had  saved  you  !  No,  you  had  got  greedy, 
Silas.  You  had  made  your  paint  your  god,  and  you 
couldn't  bear  to  let  anybody  else  share  in  its  bless 
ings." 

"  I  tell  you  he  was  a  drag  and  a  brake  on  me 
from  the  word  go.  You  say  he  saved  me.  Well,  if 
I  hadn't  got  him  out  he  'd  'a'  ruined  me  sooner  or 
later.  So  it's  an  even  thing,  as  far  forth  as  that 
goes." 

"  No,  it  ain't  an  even  thing,  and  you  know  it, 
Silas.  Oh,  if  I  could  only  get  you  once  to  acknow 
ledge  that  you  did  wrong  about  it,  then  I  should 


64  THE  RISE  OF 

have  some  hope.      I  don't  say  you  meant  wrong  , 
exactly,  but  you  took  an  advantage.     Yes,  you  took 
an  advantage  !    You  had  him  where  he  couldn't  help 
himself,    and   then    you   wouldn't    show   him    any 
mercy." 

"  I  'm  sick  of  this,''  said  Lapham.  "  If  you  '11 
'tend  to  the  house,  I  '11  manage  my  business  without 
your  help." 

"  You  were  very  glad  of  my  help  once." 
"  Well,  I  'm  tired  of  it  now.     Don't  meddle." 
"  I   will  meddle.      When    I   see   you  hardening 
yourself  in   a  wrong  thing,   it 's   time   for  me   to 
meddle,  as  you  call  it,  and  I  will.     I  can't  ever  get 
you  to  own  up  the  least  bit  about  Rogers,  and  I  feel 
as  if  it  was  hurting  you  all  the  while." 

"  What  do  you  want  I  should  own  up  about  a 
thing  for  when  I  don't  feel  wrong  ?  I  tell  you 
Rogers  hain't  got  anything  to  complain  of,  and  that 's 
what  I  told  you  from  the  start.  It 's  a  thing  that 's 
done  every  day.  I  was  loaded  up  with  a  partner 
that  didn't  know  anything,  and  couldn't  do  anything, 
and  I  unloaded;  that's  all." 

"  You  unloaded  just  at  the  time  when  you  knew 
that  your  paint  was  going  to  be  worth  about  twice 
what  it  ever  had  been ;  and  you  wanted  all  the 
advantage  for  yourself." 

"  I  had  a  right  to  it.     I  made  the  success." 
"Yes,  you  made  it  with  Rogers's  money;   and 
when  you'd  made  it  you  took  his  share  of  it.      I 
guess  you  thought  of  that  when  you  saw  him,  and 
that's  why  you  couldn't  look  him  in  the  face." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  65 

At  these  words  Lapham  lost  his  temper. 

"  I  guess  you  don't  want  to  ride  with  me  any 
more  to-day,"  he  said,  turning  the  mare  abruptly 
round. 

"  I  'm  as  ready  to  go  back  as  what  you  are,"  re 
plied  his  wife.  "  And  don't  you  ask  me  to  go  to 
that  house  with  you  any  more.  You  can  sell  it,  for 
all  me.  I  sha'n't  live  in  it.  There 's  blood  on  it." 


E 


IV. 


THE  silken  texture  of  the  marriage  tie  bears  a 
daily  strain  of  wrong  and  insult  to  which  no  other 
human  relation  can  be  subjected  without  lesion ;  and 
sometimes  the  strength  that  knits  society  together 
might  appear  to  the  eye  of  faltering  faith  the  curse 
of  those  immediately  bound  by  it.  Two  people  by 
no  means  reckless  of  each  other's  rights  and  feelings, 
but  even  tender  of  them  for  the  most  part,  may  tear 
at  each  other's  heart-strings  in  this  sacred  bond  with 
perfect  impunity;  though  if  they  were  any  other 
two  they  would  not  speak  or  look  at  each  other 
again  after  the  outrages  they  exchange.  It  is  cer 
tainly  a  curious  spectacle,  and  doubtless  it  ought  to 
convince  an  observer  of  the  divinity  of  the  institu 
tion.  If  the  husband  and  wife  are  blunt,  outspoken 
people  like  the  Laphams,  they  do  not  weigh  their 
words ;  if  they  are  more  refined,  they  weigh  them 
very  carefully,  and  know  accurately  just  how  far 
they  will  carry,  and  in  what  most  sensitive  spot  they 
may  be  planted  with  most  effect 

Lapham  was  proud  of  his  wife,  and  when  he 
married  her  it  had  been  a  rise  in  life  for  him.  For 
a  while  he  stood  in  awe  of  his  good  fortune,  but  this 

66 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  67 

could  not  last,  and  he  simply  remained  supremely 
satisfied  with  it.  The  girl  who  had  taught  school 
with  a  clear  head  and  a  strong  hand  was  not  afraid 
of  work ;  she  encouraged  and  helped  him  from  the 
first,  and  bore  her  full  share  of  the  common  burden. 
She  had  health,  and  she  did  not  worry  his  life  out 
with  peevish  complaints  and  vagaries ;  she  had  sense 
and  principle,  and  in  their  simple  lot  she  did  what 
was  wise  and  right.  Their  marriage  was  hallowed 
by  an  early  sorrow  :  they  lost  their  boy,  and  it  was 
years  before  they  could  look  each  other  in  the  face 
and  speak  of  him.  No  one  gave  up  more  than  they 
when  they  gave  up  each  other  and  Lapham  went  to 
the  war.  When  he  came  back  and  began  to  work, 
her  zeal  and  courage  formed  the  spring  of  his  enter 
prise.  In  that  affair  of  the  partnership  she  had 
tried  to  be  his  conscience,  but  perhaps  she  would 
have  defended  him  if  he  had  accused  himself ;  it  was 
one  of  those  things  in  this  life  which  seem  destined 
to  await  justice,  or  at  least  judgment,  in  the  next. 
As  he  said,  Lapham  had  dealt  fairly  by  his  partner 
in  money ;  he  had  let  Rogers  take  more  money  out 
of  the  business  than  he  put  into  it ;  he  had,  as  he 
said,  simply  forced  out  of  it  a  timid  and  inefficient 
participant  in  advantages  which  he  had  created. 
But  Lapham  had  not  created  them  all.  He  had 
been  dependent  at  one  time  on  his  partner's  capital. 
It  was  u  moment  of  terrible  trial.  Happy  is  the 
man  for  ever  after  who  can  choose  the  ideal,  the 
unselfish  part  in  such  an  exigency  !  Lapham  could 
not  rise  to  it.  He  did  what  he  could  maintain  to 


68  THE  RISE  OF 

be  perfectly  fair.  The  wrong,  if  any,  seemed  to  be 
condoned  to  him,  except  when  from  time  to  time 
his  wife  brought  it  up.  Then  all  the  question  stung 
and  burned  anew,  and  had  to  be  reasoned  out  and 
put  away  once  more.  It  seemed  to  have  an  inex 
tinguishable  vitality.  It  slept,  but  it  did  not  die. 

His  course  did  not  shake  Mrs.  Lapham's  faith  in 
him.  It  astonished  her  at  first,  and  it  always  grieved 
her  that  he  could  not  see  that  he  was  acting  solely 
in  his  own  interest.  But  she  found  excuses  for  him, 
which  at  times  she  made  reproaches.  She  vaguely 
perceived  that  his  paint  was  something  more  than 
business  to  him ;  it  was  a  sentiment,  almost  a 
passion.  He  could  not  share  its  management  and 
its  profit  with  another  without  a  measure  of  self- 
sacrifice  far  beyond  that  which  he  must  make  with 
something  less  personal  to  him.  It  was  the  poetry 
of  that  nature,  otherwise  so  intensely  prosaic ;  and 
she  understood  this,  and  for  the  most  part  forbore. 
She  knew  him  good  and  true  and  blameless  in  all 
his  life,  except  for  this  wrong,  if  it  were  a  wrong ; 
and  it  was  only  when  her  nerves  tingled  intolerably 
with  some  chance  renewal  of  the  pain  she  had 
suffered,  that  she  shared  her  anguish  with  him  in 
true  wifely  fashion. 

With  those  two  there  was  never  anything  like 
an  explicit  reconciliation.  They  simply  ignored  a 
quarrel;  and  Mrs.  Lapham  had  only  to  say  a  few 
days  after  at  breakfast,  "  I  guess  the  girls  would 
like  to  go  round  with  you  this  afternoon,  and  look 
at  the  new  house,"  in  order  to  make  her  husband 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  69 

grumble  out  as  he  looked  down  into  his  coffee-cup, 
"  I  guess  we  better  all  go,  hadn't  we  ?" 

"Well,  I '11  see,"  she  said. 

There  was  not  really  a  great  deal  to  look  at  when 
Lapham  arrived  on  the  ground  in  his  four-seated 
bench-wagon.  But  the  walls  were  up,  and  the 
studding  had  already  given  skeleton  shape  to  the 
interior.  The  floors  were  roughly  boarded  over,  and 
the  stairways  were  in  place,  with  provisional  treads 
rudely  laid.  They  had  not  begun  to  lath  and 
plaster  yet,  but  the  clean,  fresh  smell  of  the  mortar 
in  the  walls  mingling  with  the  pungent  fragrance  of 
the  pine  shavings  neutralised  the  Venetian  odour 
that  drew  in  over  the  water.  It  was  pleasantly 
shady  there,  though  for  the  matter  of  that  the  heat 
of  the  morning  had  all  been  washed  out  of  the 
atmosphere  by  a  tide  of  east  wind  setting  in  at  noon, 
and  the  thrilling,  delicious  cool  of  a  Boston  summer 
afternoon  bathed  every  nerve. 

The  foreman  went  about  with  Mrs.  Lapham,  show 
ing  her  where  the  doors  were  to  be ;  but  Lapham 
soon  tired  of  this,  and  having  found  a  pine  stick  of 
perfect  grain,  he  abandoned  himself  to  the  pleasure 
of  whittling  it  in  what  was  to  be  the  reception-room, 
where  he  sat  looking  out  on  the  street  from  what 
was  to  be  the  bay-window.  Here  he  was  presently 
joined  by  his  girls,  who,  after  locating  their  own 
room  on  the  water  side  above  the  music-room,  had 
no  more  wish  to  enter  into  details  than  their  father. 

"  Come  and  take  a  seat  in  the  bay-window,  ladies," 
he  called  out  to  them,  as  they  looked  in  at  him 


70  THE  RISE  OF 

through  the  ribs  of  the  wall.  He  jocosely  made 
room  for  them  on  the  trestle  on  which  he  sat. 

They  came  gingerly  and  vaguely  forward,  as  young 
ladies  do  when  they  wish  not  to  seem  to  be  going 
to  do  a  thing  they  have  made  up  their  minds  to  do. 
When  they  had  taken  their  places  on  their  trestle, 
they  could  not  help  laughing  with  scorn,  open  and 
acceptable  to  their  father ;  and  Irene  curled  her  chin 
up,  in  a  little  way  she  had,  and  said,  "  How  ridicu 
lous  ! "  to  her  sister. 

"  Well,  I  can  tell  you  what,"  said  the  Colonel,  in 
fond  enjoyment  of  .their  young  ladyishness,  "your 
mother  wa'n't  ashamed  to  sit  with  me  on  a  trestle 
when  I  called  her  out  to  look  at  the  first  coat  of  my 
paint  that  I  ever  tried  on  a  house." 

"  Yes ;  we  've  heard  that  story, "  said  Penelope, 
with  easy  security  of  her  father's  liking  what  she 
said.  "  We  were  brought  up  on  that  story." 

"Well,  it's  a  good  story,"  said  her  father. 

At  that  moment  a  young  man  came  suddenly  in 
range,  who  began  to  look  up  at  the  signs  of  building 
as  he  approached.  He  dropped  his  eyes  in  coming 
abreast  of  the  bay-window,  where  Lapham  sat  with 
his  girls,  and  then  his  face  lightened,  and  he  took 
off  his  hat  and  bowed  to  Irene.  She  rose  mechani 
cally  from  the  trestle,  and  her  face  lightened  too. 
She  was  a  very  pretty  figure  of  a  girl,  after  our 
fashion  of  girls,  round  and  slim  and  flexible,  and 
her  face  was  admirably  regular.  But  her  great 
beauty — and  it  was  very  great — was  in  her  colouring. 
This  was  of  an  effect  for  which  there  is  no  word  but 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  71 

delicious,  as  we  use  it  of  fruit  or  flowers.  She  had 
red  hair,  like  her  father  in  his  earlier  days,  and  the 
tints  of  her  cheeks  and  temples  were  such  as  sug 
gested  May-flowers  and  apple-blossoms  and  peaches. 
Instead  of  the  grey  that  often  dulls  this  complexion, 
her  eyes  were  of  a  blue  at  once  intense  and  tender, 
and  they  seemed  to  burn  on  what  they  looked  at 
with  a  soft,  lambent  flame.  It  was  well  understood 
by  her  sister  and  mother  that  her  eyes  always  ex 
pressed  a  great  deal  more  than  Irene  ever  thought 
or  felt ;  but  this  is  not  saying  that  she  was  not  a 
very  sensible  girl  and  very  honest. 

The  young  man  faltered  perceptibly,  and  Irene 
came  a  little  forward,  and  then  there  gushed  from 
them  both  a  smiling  exchange  of  greeting,  of  which 
the  sum  was  that  he  supposed  she  was  out  of  town, 
and  that  she  had  not  known  that  he  had  got  back. 
A  pause  ensued,  and  flushing  again  in  her  uncer 
tainty  as  to  whether  she  ought  or  ought  not  to  do 
it,  she  said,  "  My  father,  Mr.  Corey ;  and  my  sister." 

The  young  man  took  off  his  hat  again,  showing 
his  shapely  head,  with  a  line  of  wholesome  sunburn 
ceasing  where  the  recently  and  closely  clipped  hair 
began.  He  was  dressed  in  a  fine  summer  check,  with 
a  blue  white-dotted  neckerchief,  and  he  had  a  white 
hat,  in  which  he  looked  very  well  when  he  put  it  back 
on  his  head.  His  whole  dress  seemed  very  fresh  and 
new,  and  in  fact  he  had  cast  aside  his  Texan  habili 
ments  only  the  day  before. 

"How  do  you  do,  sir  1"  said  the  Colonel,  stepping 
to  the  window,  and  reaching  out  of  it  the  hand  which 


72  THE  RISE  OF 

the  young  man  advanced  to  take.  "  Won't  you  come 
in  1  We  're  at  home  here.  House  I  'm  building." 

"  Oh,  indeed  ? "  returned  the  young  man ;  and  he 
came  promptly  up  the  steps,  and  through  its  ribs  into 
the  reception-room. 

"Have  a  trestle?"  asked  the  Colonel,  while  the 
girls  exchanged  little  shocks  of  terror  and  amuse 
ment  at  the  eyes. 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  young  man  simply,  and 
sat  down. 

"  Mrs.  Lapham  is  upstairs  interviewing  the  car 
penter,  but  she  '11  be  down  in  a  minute." 

"I  hope  she's  quite  well,"  said  Corey.  "I  sup 
posed — I  was  afraid  she  might  be  out  of  town." 

"  Well,  we  are  off  to  Nantasket  next  week.  The 
house  kept  us  in  town  pretty  late." 

"It  must  be  very  exciting,  building  a  house," 
said  Corey  to  the  elder  sister. 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  she  assented,  loyally  refusing  in 
Irene's  interest  the  opportunity  of  saying  anything 
more. 

Corey  turned  to  the  latter.  "  I  suppose  you  Ve 
all  helped  to  plan  it?" 

"  Oh  no ;  the  architect  and  mamma  did  that." 

"  But  they  allowed  the  rest  of  us  to  agree,  when 
we  were  good,"  said  Penelope. 

Corey  looked  at  her,  and  saw  that  she  was  shorter 
than  her  sister,  and  had  a  dark  complexion. 

"  It 's  very  exciting,"  said  Irene. 

"  Come  up,"  said  the  Colonel,  rising,  "  and  look 
round  if  you  'd  like  to." 


SILAS  LAPHAM  73 

"I  should  like  to,  very  much,"  said  the  young 
man. 

He  helped  the  young  ladies  over  crevasses  o* 
carpentry  and  along  narrow  paths  of  planking,  on 
which  they  had  made  their  way  unassisted  before. 
The  elder  sister  left  the  younger  to  profit  solely 
by  these  offices  as  much  as  possible.  She  walked 
between  them  and  her  father,  who  went  before, 
lecturing  on  each  apartment,  and  taking  the  credit 
of  the  whole  affair  more  and  more  as  he  talked 
on. 

"There  !"  he  said,  "  we  're  going  to  throw  out  a 
bay-window  here,  so  as  get  the  water  all  the  way 
up  and  down.  This  is  my  girls'  room,"  he  added, 
looking  proudly  at  them  both. 

It  seemed  terribly  intimate.  Irene  blushed  deeply 
and  turned  her  head  away. 

But  the  young  man  took  it  all,  apparently,  as 
simply  as  their  father.  "What  a  lovely  lookout !" 
he  said.  The  Back  Bay  spread  its  glassy  sheet 
before  them,  empty  but  for  a  few  small  boats  and 
a  large  schooner,  with  her  sails  close-furled  and 
dripping  like  snow  from  her  spars,  which  a  tug  was 
rapidly  towing  toward  Cambridge.  The  carpentry 
of  that  city,  embanked  and  embowered  in  foliage, 
shared  the  picturesqueness  of  Charlestown  in  the 
distance. 

"  Yes,"  said  Lapham,  "  I  go  in  for  using  the  best 
rooms  in  your  house  yourself.  If  people  come  to 
stay  with  you,  they  can  put  up  with  the  second  best. 
Though  we  don't  intend  to  have  any  second  best. 


74  THE  RISE  OF 

There  ain't  going  to  be  an  unpleasant  room  in  the 
whole  house,  from  top  to  bottom." 

"Oh,  I  wish  papa  wouldn't  brag  so!"  breathed 
Irene  to  her  sister,  where  they  stood,  a  little  apart, 
looking  away  "together. 

The  Colonel  went  on.  "  No,  sir,"  he  swelled  out, 
' '  I  have  gone  in  for  making  a  regular  job  of  it.  I  've 
got  the  best  architect  in  Boston,  and  I  'm  building  a 
house  to  suit  myself.  And  if  money  can  do  it,  I 
guess  I  'm  going  to  be  suited." 

"  It  seems  very  delightful,"  said  Corey,  "  and  very 
original." 

"  Yes,  sir.  That  fellow  hadn't  talked  five  minutes 
before  I  saw  that  he  knew  what  he  was  about  every 
time." 

"  I  wish  mamma  would  come  !"  breathed  Irene 
again.  "  I  shall  certainly  go  through  the  floor  if 
papa  says  anything  more." 

"They  are  making  a  great  many  very  pretty 
houses  nowadays,"  said  the  young  man.  "  It 's  very 
different  from  the  old-fashioned  building." 

"  Well,"  said  the  Colonel,  with  a  large  toleration 
of  tone  and  a  deep  breath  that  expanded  his  ample 
chest,  "  we  spend  more  on  our  houses  nowadays.  I 
started  out  to  build  a  forty-thousand-dollar  house. 
Well,  sir  !  that  fellow  has  got  me  in  for  more  than 
sixty  thousand  already,  and  I  doubt  if  I  get  out  of 
it  much  under  a  hundred.  You  can't  have  a  nice 
house. for  nothing.  It's  just  like  ordering  a  picture 
of  a  painter.  You  pay  him  enough,  and  he  can  afford 
to  paint  you  a  first-class  picture  ;  and  if  you  don't, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  75 

he  can't.  That 's  all  there  is  of  it.  Why,  they  tell 
me  that  A.  T.  Stewart  gave  one  of  those  French 
fellows  sixty  thousand  dollars  for  a  little  seven-by- 
nine  picture  the  other  day.  Yes,  sir,  give  an  archi 
tect  money  enough,  and  he  '11  give  you  a  nice  house 
every  time." 

"  I  Ve  heard  that  they  're  sharp  at  getting  money 
to  realise  their  ideas,"  assented  the  young  man,  with 
a  laugh. 

"Well,  I  should  say  so  !"  exclaimed  the  Colonel. 
"  They  come  to  you  with  an  improvement  that  you 
can't  resist.  It  has  good  looks  and  common-sense 
and  everything  in  its  favour,  and  it 's  like  throwing 
money  away  to  refuse.  And  they  always  manage  to 
get  you  when  your  wife  is  around,  and  then  you  're 
helpless." 

The  Colonel  himself  set  the  example  of  laughing 
at  this  joke,  and  the  young  man  joined  him  less 
obstreperously.  The  girls  turned,  and  he  said,  "I 
don't  think  I  ever  saw  this  view  to  better  advantage. 
It 's  surprising  how  well  the  Memorial  Hall  and  the 
Cambridge  spires  work  up,  over  there.  And  the 
sunsets  must  be  magnificent." 

Lapham  did  not  wait  for  them  to  reply. 

"  Yes,  sir,  it 's  about  the  sightliest  view  I  know  of. 
I  always  did  like  the  water  side  of  Beacon.  Long 
before  I  owned  property  here,  or  ever  expected  to, 
m'wife  and  I  used  to  ride  down  this  way,  and  stop 
the  buggy  to  get  this  view  over  the  water.  When 
people  talk  to  me  about  the  Hill,  I  can  understand 
'em.  It 's  snug,  and  it 's  old-fashioned,  and  it 's  where 


76  THE  RISE  OF 

they've  always  lived.  But  when  they  talk  about 
Commonwealth  Avenue,  I  don't  know  what  they 
mean.  It  don't  hold  a  candle  to  the  water  side  of 
Beacon.  You  've  got  just  as  much  wind  over  there, 
and  you  've  got  just  as  much  dust,  and  all  the  view 
you  've  got  is  the  view  across  the  street.  No,  sir  ! 
when  you  come  to  the  Back  Bay  at  all,  give  me  the 
water  side  of  Beacon." 

"  Oh,  I  think  you  're  quite  right,"  said  the  young 
man.  "  The  view  here  is  everything." 

Irene  looked  "  I  wonder  what  papa  is  going  to  say 
next !"  at  her  sister,  when  their  mother's  voice  was 
heard  overhead,  approaching  the  opening  in  the  floor 
where  the  stairs  were  to  be ;  and  she  presently 
appeared,  with  one  substantial  foot  a  long  way 
ahead.  She  was  followed  by  the  carpenter,  with  his 
rule  sticking  out  of  his  overalls  pocket,  and  she  was 
still  talking  to  him  about  some  measurements  they 
had  been  taking,  when  they  reached  the  bottom,  so 
that  Irene  had  to  say,  "  Mamma,  Mr.  Corey,"  before 
Mrs.  Lapham  was  aware  of  him. 

He  came  forward  with  as  much  grace  and  speed  as 
the  uncertain  footing  would  allow,  and  Mrs.  Lapham 
gave  him  a  stout  squeeze  of  her  comfortable  hand. 

"  Why,  Mr.  Corey  !     "When  did  you  get  back  ?" 

"  Yesterday.  It  hardly  seems  as  if  I  had  got  back. 
I  didn't  expect  to  find  you  in  a  new  house." 

"  Well,  you  are  our  first  caller.  I  presume  you 
won't  expect  I  should  make  excuses  for  the  state  you 
find  it  in.  Has  the  Colonel  been  doing  the 
honours?" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  77 

"  Oh  yes.  And  I  Ve  seen  more  of  your  house 
than  I  ever  shall  again,  I  suppose." 

"  Well,  I  hope  not,"  said  Lapham.  "  There  '11  be 
several  chances  to  see  us  in  the  old  one  yet,  before 
we  leave." 

He  probably  thought  this  a  neat,  off-hand  way  of 
making  the  invitation,  for  he  looked  at  his  woman 
kind  as  if  he  might  expect  their  admiration. 

"  Oh  yes,  indeed  ! "  said  his  wife.  "  We  shall  be 
very  glad  to  see  Mr.  Corey,  any  time." 

"  Thank  you;  I  shall  be  glad  to  come." 

He  and  the  Colonel  went  before,  and  helped  the 
ladies  down  the  difficult  descent.  Irene  seemed  less 
sure-footed  than  the  others ;  she  clung  to  the  young 
man's  hand  an  imperceptible  moment  longer  than 
need  be,  or  else  he  detained  her.  He  found  oppor 
tunity  of  saying,  "It's  so  pleasant  seeing  you 
again,"  adding,  "  all  of  you." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  the  girl.  "  They  must  all  be 
glad  to  have  you  at  home  again." 

Corey  laughed. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  they  would  be,  if  they  were  at 
home  to  have  me.  But  the  fact  is,  there 's  nobody 
in  the  house  but  my  father  and  myself,  and  I'm 
only  on  my  way  to  Bar  Harbour." 

"  Oh  !     Are  they  there  ? " 

"  Yes ;  it  seems  to  be  the  only  place  where  my 
mother  can  get  just  the  combination  of  sea  and 
mountain  air  that  she  wants." 

"  We  go  to  Nantasket — it 's  convenient  for  papa ; 
and  I  don't  believe  we  shall  go  anywhere  else  this 


78  THE  RISE  OF 

summer,  mamma 's  so  taken  up  with  building.  We 
do  nothing  but  talk  house;  and  Pen  says  we  eat 
and  sleep  house.  She  says  it  would  be  a  sort  of 
relief  to  go  and  live  in  tents  for  a  while." 

"  She  seems  to  have  a  good  deal  of  humour,"  the 
young  man  ventured,  upon  the  slender  evidence. 

The  others  had  gone  to  the  back  of  the  house  a 
moment,  to  look  at  some  suggested  change.  Irene 
and  Corey  were  left  standing  in  the  doorway.  A 
lovely  light  of  happiness  played  over  her  face  and 
etherealised  its  delicious  beauty.  She  had  some  ado 
to  keep  herself  from  smiling  outright,  and  the  effort 
deepened  the  dimples  in  her  cheeks ;  she  trembled 
a  little,  and  the  .pendants  shook  in  the  tips  of  her 
pretty  ears. 

The  others  came  back  directly,  and  they  all 
descended  the  front  steps  together.  The  Colonel 
was  about  to  renew  his  invitation,  but  he  caught  his 
wife's  eye,  and,  without  being  able  to  interpret  its 
warning  exactly,  was  able  to  arrest  himself,  and 
went  about  gathering  up  the  hitching-weight,  while 
the  young  man  handed  the  ladies  into  the  phaeton. 
Then  he  lifted  his  hat,  and  the  ladies  all  bowed,  and 
the  Laphams  drove  off,  Irene's  blue  ribbons  flutter 
ing  backward  from  her  hat,  as  if  they  were  her 
clinging  thoughts. 

"  So  that 's  young  Corey,  is  it  1 "  said  the  Colonel, 
letting  the  stately  stepping,  tall  coupt  horse  make  his 
way  homeward  at  will  with  the  bench-wagon.  "  Well, 
he  ain't  a  bad-looking  fellow,  and  he 's  got  a  good, 
fair  and  square,  honest  eye.  But  I  don't  see  how  a 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  79 

fellow  like  that,  that 's  had  every  advantage  in  this 
world,  can  hang  round  home  and  let  his  father 
support  him.  Seems  to  me,  if  I  had  his  health  and 
his  education,  I  should  want  to  strike  out  and  do 
something  for  myself." 

The  girls  on  the  back  seat  had  hold  of  each  other's 
hands,  and  they  exchanged  electrical  pressures  at  the 
different  points  their  father  made. 

"  I  presume,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  "  that  he  was 
down  in  Texas  looking  after  something." 

" He's  come  back  without  finding  it,  I  guess." 

"Well,  if  his  father  has  the  money  to  support 
him,  and  don't  complain  of  the  burden,  I  don't  see 
why  we  should." 

"Oh,  I  know  it's  none  of  my  business;  but  I 
don't  like  the  principle.  I  like  to  see  a  man  act  like 
a  man.  I  don't  like  to  see  him  taken  care  of  like  a 
young  lady.  Now,  I  suppose  that  fellow  belongs  to 
two  or  three  clubs,  and  hangs  around  'em  all  day, 
lookin'  out  the  window, — I  've  seen  'em, — instead  of 
try  in'  to  hunt  up  something  to  do  for  an  honest 
livin'." 

"If  I  was  a  young  man,"  Penelope  struck  in,  "I 
would  belong  to  twenty  clubs,  if  I  could  find  them, 
and  I  would  hang  around  them  all,  and  look  out  the 
window  till  I  dropped." 

"  Oh,  you  would,  would  you  ? "  demanded  her 
father,  delighted  with  her  defiance,  and  twisting  his 
fat  head  around  over  his  shoulder  to  look  at  her. 
"  Well,  you  wouldn't  do  it  on  my  money,  if  you 
were  a  son  of  mine,  young  lady." 


80  THE  RISE  OF 

"  Oh,  you  wait  and  see,"  retorted  the  girl. 

This  made  them  all  laugh.  But  the  Colonel 
recurred  seriously  to  the  subject  that  night,  as  he 
was  winding  up  his  watch  preparatory  to  putting  it 
under  his  pillow. 

"  I  could  make  a  man  of  that  fellow,  if  I  had  him 
in  the  business  with  me.  There's  stuff  in  him. 
But  I  spoke  up  the  way  I  did  because  I  didn't 
choose  Irene  should  think  I  would  stand  any  kind 
of  a  loafer  'round — I  don't  care  who  he  is,  or  how 
well  educated  or  brought  up.  And  I  guess,  from 
the  way  Pen  spoke  up,  that  'Eene  saw  what  I  was 
driving  at." 

The  girl,  apparently,  was  less  anxious  about  her 
father's  ideas  and  principles  than  about  the  impres 
sion  which  he  had  made  upon  the  young  man.  She 
had  talked  it  over  and  over  with  her  sister  before 
they  went  to  bed,  and  she  asked  in  despair,  as  she 
stood  looking  at  Penelope  brushing  out  her  hair 
before  the  glass — 

"  Do  you  suppose  he  '11  think  papa  always  talks 
in  that  bragging  way  ? " 

"He'll  be  right  if  he  does,"  answered  her  sister. 
"  It 's  the  way  father  always  does  talk.  You  never 
noticed  it  so  much,  that's  all.  And  I  guess  if  he 
can't  make  allowance  for  father's  bragging,  he  '11  be 
a  little  too  good.  I  enjoyed  hearing  the  Colonel  go 
on." 

"I  know  you  did,"  returned  Irene  in  distress. 
Then  she  sighed.  "  Didn't  you  think  he  looked 
very  nice  1" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  81 

"  Who  ?  The  Colonel  1"  Penelope  had  caught  up 
the  habit  of  calling  her  father  so  from  her  mother, 
and  she  used  his  title  in  all  her  jocose  and  perverse 
moods. 

"  You  know  very  well  I  don't  mean  papa/'  pouted 
Irene. 

"  Oh  !  Mr.  Corey  !  Why  didn't  you  say  Mr.  Corey 
if  you  meant  Mr.  Corey  ?  If  I  meant  Mr.  Corey,  I 
should  say  Mr.  Corey.  It  isn't  swearing  !  Corey, 
Corey,  Co " 

Her  sister  clapped  her  hand  over  her  mouth. 
"Will  you  hush,  you  wretched  thing1?"  she  whim 
pered.  "  The  whole  house  can  hear  you." 

"  Oh  yes,  they  can  hear  me  all  over  the  square. 
Well,  I  think  he  looked  well  enough  for  a  plain 
youth,  who  hadn't  taken  his  hair  out  of  curl-papers 
for  some  time." 

"  It  was  clipped  pretty  close,"  Irene  admitted ; 
and  they  both  laughed  at  the  drab  effect  of  Mr. 
Corey's  skull,  as  they  remembered  it.  "Did  you 
like  his  nose  ?"  asked  Irene  timorously. 

"  Ah,  now  you  're  coming  to  something,"  said 
Penelope.  "  I  don't  know  whether,  if  I  had  so 
much  of  a  nose,  I  should  want  it  all  Roman." 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  can  expect  to  have  a  nose 
part  one  kind  and  part  another,"  argued  Irene. 

"  Oh,  1  do.  Look  at  mine  !"  She  turned  aside 
her  face,  so  as  to  get  a  three-quarters  view  of  her 
nose  in  the  glass,  and  crossing  her  hands,  with  the 
brush  in  one  of  them,  before  her,  regarded  it  judici 
ally.  "  Now,  my  nose  started  Grecian,  but  changed 
F 


82  THE  RISE  OF 

its  mind  before  it  got  over  the  bridge,  and  concluded 
to  be  snub  the  rest  of  the  way." 

"  You  've  got  a  very  pretty  nose,  Pen,"  said  Irene, 
joining  in  the  contemplation  of  its  reflex  in  the  glass. 

"  Don't  say  that  in  hopes  of  getting  me  to  com 
pliment  his,  Mrs." — she  stopped,  and  then  added 
deliberately— "  C.  !" 

Irene  also  had  her  hair-brush  in  her  hand,  and  now 
she  sprang  at  her  sister  and  beat  her  very  softly  on 
the  shoulder  with  the  flat  of  it.  "  You  mean  thing  !" 
she  cried,  between  her  shut  teeth,  blushing  hotly. 

"  Well,  D.,  then,"  said  Penelope.  "  You  've  nothing 
to  say  against  D.  ?  Though  I  think  C.  is  just  as 
nice  an  initial." 

"  Oh  !"  cried  the  younger,  for  all  expression  of 
unspeakable  things. 

"I  think  he  has  very  good  eyes,"  admitted 
Penelope. 

"  Oh,  he  has  !  And  didn't  you  like  the  way  his 
sack-coat  set  ?  So  close  to  him,  and  yet  free — kind 
of  peeling  away  at  the  lapels  1" 

"  Yes,  I  should  say  he  was  a  young  man  of  great 
judgment.  He  knows  how  to  choose  his  tailor." 

Irene  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  a  chair.  "  It  was  so 
nice  of  you,  Pen,  to  come  in,  that  way,  about  clubs." 

"  Oh,  I  didn't  mean  anything  by  it  except  opposi 
tion,"  said  Penelope.  "  I  couldn't  have  father  swelling 
on  so,  without  saying  something." 

"How  he  did  swell  1"  sighed  Irene.  "Wasn't  it 
a  relief  to  have  mamma  come  down,  even  if  she  did 
seem  to  be  all  stocking  at  first  ?" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  83 

The  girls  broke  into  a  wild  giggle,  and  hid  their 
faces  in  each  other's  necks.  "  I  thought  I  should 
die,"  said  Irene. 

"  '  It's  just  like  ordering  a  painting,'"  saidPenelope, 
recalling  her  father's  talk,  with  an  effect  of  dreamy 
absent-mindedness.  " '  You  give  the  painter  money 
enough,  and  he  can  afford  to  paint  you  a  first-class 
picture.  Give  an  architect  money  enough,  and  he  '11 
give  you  a  first-class  house,  every  time.3" 

"  Oh,  wasn't  it  awful !"  moaned  her  sister.  "  No 
one  would  ever  have  supposed  that  he  had  fought 
the  very  idea  of  an  architect  for  weeks,  before  he 
gave  in." 

Penelope  went  on.  "'I  always  did  like  the- water 
side  of  Beacon, — long  before  I  owned  property  there. 
When  you  come  to  the  Back  Bay  at  all,  give  me 
the  water  side  of  Beacon."' 

"  Ow-w-w-w  !"  shrieked  Irene.     "  Do  stop  !" 

The  door  of  their  mother's  chamber  opened  below, 
and  the  voice  of  the  real  Colonel  called,  "  What  are 
you  doing  up  there,  girls  ?  Why  don't  you  go  to 
bed  1" 

This  extorted  nervous  shrieks  from  both  of  them. 
The  Colonel  heard  a  sound  of  scurrying  feet,  whisking 
drapery,  and  slamming  doors.  Then  he  heard  one 
of  the  doors  opened  again,  and  Penelope  said,  "  I 
was  only  repeating  something  you  said  when  you 
talked  to  Mr.  Corey." 

"Very  well,  now,"  answered  the  Colonel.  "You 
postpone  the  rest  of  it  till  to-morrow  at  breakfast, 
and  see  that  you  're  up  in  time  to  let  me  hear  it." 


V. 


AT  the  same  moment  young  Corey  let  himself  in 
at  his  own  door  with  his  latch-key,  and  went  to  the 
library,  where  he  found  his  father  turning  the  last 
leaves  of  a  story  in  the  Revw  des  Deux  Mondes. 
He  was  a  white-moustached  old  gentleman,  who  had 
never  been  able  to  abandon  his  pince-nez  for  the 
superior  comfort  of  spectacles,  even  in  the  privacy 
of  his  own  library.  He  knocked  the  glasses  off 
as  his  son  came  in  and  looked  up  at  him  with  lazy 
fondness,  rubbing  the  two  red  marks  that  they  always 
leave  on  the  side  of  the  nose. 

"  Tom,"  he  said,  "  where  did  you  get  such  good 
clothes  ?" 

"  I  stopped  over  a  day  in  New  York,"  replied  the 
son,  finding  himself  a  chair.  "  I  'm  glad  you  like 
them." 

"  Yes,  I  always  do  like  your  clothes,  Tom,  re 
turned  the  father  thoughtfully,  swinging  his  glasses, 
"  But  I  don't  see  how  you  can  afford  'em,  I  can't." 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  the  son,  who  dropped  the  "  sir  " 
into  his  speech  with  his  father,  now  and  then,  in  an 
old-fashioned  way  that  was  rather  charming,  "  you 
see,  I  have  an  indulgent  parent." 

84 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  85 

"Smoke?"  suggested  the  father,  pushing  toward 
his  son  a  box  of  cigarettes,  from  which  he  had  taken 
one. 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  the  son.  "I've  dropped 
that." 

"Ah,  is  that  so?"  The  father  began  to  feel 
about  on  the  table  for  matches,  in  the  purblind 
fashion  of  elderly  men.  His  son  rose,  lighted  one, 
and  handed  it  to  him.  "  Well, — oh,  thank  you, 
Tom ! — I  believe  some  statisticians  prove  that  if  you 
will  give  up  smoking  you  can  dress  very  well  on  the 
money  your  tobacco  costs,  even  if  you  haven't  got 
an  indulgent  parent.  But  I'm  too  old  to  try. 
Though,  I  confess,  I  should  rather  like  the  clothes. 
Whom  did  you  find  at  the  club  ?" 

"  There  were  a  lot  of  fellows  there,"  said  young 
Corey,  watching  the  accomplished  fumigation  of  his 
father  in  an  absent  way. 

"  It 's  astonishing  what  a  hardy  breed  the  young 
club-men  are,"  observed  his  father.  "All  summer 
through,  in  weather  that  sends  the  sturdiest  female 
flying  to  the  sea-shore,  you  find  the  clubs  filled  with 
young  men,  who  don't  seem  to  mind  the  heat  in  the 
least." 

"  Boston  isn't  a  bad  place,  at  the  worst,  in  sum 
mer,"  said  the  son,  declining  to  take  up  the  matter 
in  its  ironical  shape. 

"  I  dare  say  it  isn't,  compared  with  Texas,"  re 
turned  the  father,  smoking  tranquilly  on.  "  But  I 
don't  suppose  you  find  many  of  your  friends  in  town 
outside  of  the  club." 


86  THE  RISE  OF 

"  No ;  you  're  requested  to  ring  at  the  rear  door, 
all  the  way  down  Beacon  Street  and  up  Common 
wealth  Avenue.  It's  rather  a  blank  reception  for 
the  returning  prodigal." 

"Ah,  the  prodigal  must  take  his  chance  if  he 
comes  back  out  of  season.  But  I'm  glad  to  have 
you  back,  Tom,  even  as  it  is,  and  I  hope  you  're  not 
going  to  hurry  away.  You  must  give  your  energies 
a  rest." 

"I'm  sure  you  never  had  to  reproach  me  with 
abnormal  activity,"  suggested  the  son,  taking  his 
father's  jokes  in  good  part 

"No,  I  don't  know  that  I  have,"  admitted  the 
elder.  "  You  've  always  shown  a  fair  degree  of 
moderation,  after  all.  What  do  you  think  of  taking 
up  next  ?  I  mean  after  you  have  embraced  your 
mother  and  sisters  at  Mount  Desert.  Real  estate  ? 
It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  about  time  for  you  to  open 
out  as  a  real-estate  broker.  Or  did  you  ever  think 
of  matrimony  ? " 

"  Well,  not  just  in  that  way,  sir,"  said  the  young 
man.  "  I  shouldn't  quite  like  to  regard  it  as  a 
career,  you  know." 

"  No,  no.  I  understand  that.  And  I  quite  agree 
with  you.  But  you  know  I've  always  contended 
that  the  affections  could  be  made  to  combine  plea 
sure  and  profit.  I  wouldn't  have  a  man  marry  for 
money, — that  would  be  rather  bad, — but  I  don't 
see  why,  when  it  comes  to  falling  in  love,  a  man 
shouldn't  fall  in  love  with  a  rich  girl  as  easily  as  a 
poor  one.  Some  of  the  rich  girls  are  very  nice,  and 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  87 

I  should  say  that  the  chances  of  a  quiet  life  with 
them  were  rather  greater.  They've  always  had 
everything,  and  they  wouldn't  be  so  ambitious  and 
uneasy.  Don't  you  think  so  ?" 

"  It  would  depend,"  said  the  son,  "  upon  whether 
a  girl's  people  had  been  rich  long  enough  to  have 
given  her  position  before  she  married.  If  they 
hadn't,  I  don't  see  how  she  would  be  any  better 
than  a  poor  girl  in  that  respect." 

"  Yes,  there 's  sense  in  that.  But  the  suddenly 
rich  are  on  a  level  with  any  of  us  nowadays.  Money 
buys  position  at  once.  I  don't  say  that  it  isn't  all 
right.  The  world  generally  knows  what  it 's  about, 
and  knows  how  to  drive  a  bargain.  I  dare  say  it 
makes  the  new  rich  pay  too  much.  But  there 's  no 
doubt  but  money  is  to  the  fore  now.  It  is  the 
romance,  the  poetry  of  our  age.  It 's  the  thing  that 
chiefly  strikes  the  imagination.  The  Englishmen 
who  come  here  are  more  curious  about  the  great 
new  millionaires  than  about  any  one  else,  and  they 
respect  them  more.  It's  all  very  well.  I  don't 
complain  of  it." 

"  And  you  would  like  a  rich  daughter-in-law, 
quite  regardless,  then  ] " 

"  Oh,  not  quite  so  bad  as  that,  Tom,"  said  his 
father.  "  A  little  youth,  a  little  beauty,  a  little  good 
sense  and  pretty  behaviour — one  mustn't  object  to 
those  things ;  and  they  go  just  as  often  with  money 
as  without  it.  And  I  suppose  I  should  like  her 
people  to  be  rather  grammatical." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  you  're  exacting,  sir,"  said 


88  THE  RISE  OF 

the  son.  "  How  can  you  expect  people  who  have 
been  strictly  devoted  to  business  to  be  grammatical  ? 
Isn't  that  rather  too  much  1" 

"  Perhaps  it  is.  Perhaps  you  're  right.  But  I 
understood  your  mother  to  say  that  those  bene 
factors  of  hers,  whom  you  met  last  summer,  were 
very  passably  grammatical." 

"  The  father  isn't." 

The  elder,  who  had  been  smoking  with  his  profile 
toward  his  son,  now  turned  his  face  full  upon  him. 
"  I  didn't  know  you  had  seen  him  ? " 

"  I  hadn't  until  to-day,"  said  young  Corey,  with  a 
little  heightening  of  his  colour.  "  But  I  was  walk 
ing  down  street  this  afternoon,  and  happened  to 
look  round  at  a  new  house  some  one  was  putting  up, 
and  I  saw  the  whole  family  in  the  window.  It 
appears  that  Mr.  Lapham  is  building  the  house." 

The  elder  Corey  knocked  the  ash  of  his  cigarette 
into  the  holder  at  his  elbow.  "  I  am  more  and  more 
convinced,  the  longer  I  know  you,  Tom,  that  we  are 
descended  from  Giles  Corey.  The  gift  of  holding 
one's  tongue  seems  to  have  skipped  me,  but  you 
have  it  in  full  force.  I  can't  say  just  how  you  would 
behave  under  peine  forte  et  dure,  but  under  ordinary 
pressure  you  are  certainly  able  to  keep  your  own 
counsel.  Why  didn't  you  mention  this  encounter  at 
dinner  ?  You  weren't  asked  to  plead  to  an  accusa 
tion  of  witchcraft." 

"  No,  not  exactly,"  said  the  young  man.  "  But 
I  didn't  quite  see  my  way  to  speaking  of  it  We 
had  a  good  many  other  things  before  us." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  89 

"  Yes,  that 's  true.  I  suppose  you  wouldn't  have 
mentioned  it  now  if  I  hadn't  led  up  to  it,  would 
you?" 

"  I  don't  know,  sir.  It  was  rather  on  my  mind 
to  do  so.  Perhaps  it  was  I  who  led  up  to  it." 

His  father  laughed.  "  Perhaps  you  did,  Tom  ; 
perhaps  you  did.  Your  mother  would  have  known 
you  were  leading  up  to  something,  but  I  '11  confess 
that  I  didn't.  What  is  it  ?" 

"  Nothing  very  definite.  But  do  you  know  that 
in  spite  of  his  syntax  I  rather  liked  him  1 " 

The  father  looked  keenly  at  the  son ;  but  unless 
the  boy's  full  confidence  was  offered,  Corey  was  not 
the  man  to  ask  it.  "  Well  ? "  was  all  that  he  said. 

"  I  suppose  that  in  a  new  country  one  gets  to 
looking  at  people  a  little  out  of  our  tradition ;  and 
I  dare  say  that  if  I  hadn't  passed  a  winter  in  Texas 
I  might  have  found  Colonel  Lapham  rather  too 
much." 

"  You  mean  that  there  are  worse  things  in 
Texas  ? " 

"  Not  that  exactly.  I  mean  that  I  saw  it  wouldn't 
be  quite  fair  to  test  him  by  our  standards." 

"  This  comes  of  the  error  which  I  have  often  de 
precated,"  said  the  elder  Corey.  "  In  fact  I  am 
always  saying  that  the  Bostonian  ought  never  to 
leave  Boston.  Then  he  knows — and  then  only — 
that  there  can  be  no  standard  but  ours.  But  we 
are  constantly  going  away,  and  coming  back  with 
our  convictions  shaken  to  their  foundations.  One 
man  goes  to  England,  and  returns  with  the  concep- 


90  THE  RISE  OF 

tion  of  a  grander  social  life ;  another  comes  home 
from  Germany  with  the  notion  of  a  more  searching 
intellectual  activity ;  a  fellow  just  back  from  Paris 
has  the  absurdest  ideas  of  art  and  literature;  and 
you  revert  to  us  from  the  cowboys  of  Texas,  and 
tell  us  to  our  faces  that  we  ought  to  try  Papa 
Lapham  by  a  jury  of  his  peers.  It  ought  to  be 
stopped — it  ought,  really.  The  Bostonian  who 
leaves  Boston  ought  to  be  condemned  to  perpetual 
exile." 

The  son  suffered  the  father  to  reach  his  climax 
with  smiling  patience.  When  he  asked  finally, 
"  What  are  the  characteristics  of  Papa  Lapham  that 
place  him  beyond  our  jurisdiction  ? "  the  younger 
Corey  crossed  his  long-  legs,  and  leaned  forward  to 
take  one  of  his  knees  between  his  hands. 

"  Well,  sir,  he  bragged,  rather." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  that  bragging  should  exempt 
him  from  the  ordinary  processes.  I  've  heard  other 
people  brag  in  Boston." 

"Ah,  not  just  in  that  personal  way — not  about 
money." 

"  No,  that  was  certainly  different." 

"  I  don't  mean,"  said  the  young  fellow,  with  the 
scrupulosity  which  people  could  not  help  observing 
and  liking  in  him,  "  that  it  was  more  than  an  indi 
rect  expression  of  satisfaction  in  the  ability  to  spend." 

"  No.  I  should  be  glad  to  express  something  of 
the  kind  myself,  if  the  facts  would  justify  me." 

The  son  smiled  tolerantly  again.  "  But  if  he  was 
enjoying  his  money  in  that  way,  I  didn't  see  why 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  91 

he  shouldn't  show  his  pleasure  in  it.  It  might  have 
been  vulgar,  but  it  wasn't  sordid.  And  I  don't 
know  that  it  was  vulgar.  Perhaps  his  successful 
strokes  of  business  were  the  romance  of  his  life " 

The  father  interrupted  with  a  laugh.  "  The  girl 
must  be  uncommonly  pretty.  What  did  she  seem 
to  think  of  her  father's  brag  1 " 

"There  were  two  of  them."  answered  the  son 
evasively. 

"  Oh,  two  !     And  is  the  sister  pretty  too  ? " 

"  Not  pretty,  but  rather  interesting.  She  is  like 
her  mother." 

"  Then  the  pretty  one  isn't  the  father's  pet  1 " 

"I  can't  say,  sir.  I  don't  believe,"  added  the 
young  fellow,  "  that  I  can  make  you  see  Colonel 
Lapham  just  as  I  did.  He  struck  me  as  very 
simple-hearted  and  rather  wholesome.  Of  course  he 
could  be  tiresome ;  we  all  can ;  and  I  suppose  his 
range  of  ideas  is  limited.  But  he  is  a  force,  and  not 
a  bad  one.  If  he  hasn't  got  over  being  surprised  at 
the  effect  of  rubbing  his  lamp " 

"  Oh,  one  could  make  out  a  case.  I  suppose  you 
know  what  you  are  about,  Tom.  But  remember 
that  we  are  Essex  County  people,  and  that  in  savour 
we  are  just  a  little  beyond  the  salt  of  the  earth.  I 
will  tell  you  plainly  that  I  don't  like  the  notion  of  a 
man  who  has  rivalled  the  hues  of  nature  in  her  wild 
est  haunts  with  the  tints  of  his  mineral  paint ;  but 
I  don't  say  there  are  not  worse  men.  He  isn't  to 
my  taste,  though  he  might  be  ever  so  much  to  my 
conscience." 


92  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  suppose,"  said  the  son,  "  that  there  is  nothing 
really  to  -be  ashamed  of  in  mineral  paint  People 
go  into  all  sorts  of  things." 

His  father  took  his  cigarette  from  his  mouth  and 
once  more  looked  his  son  full  in  the  face.  "  Oh,  is 
that  it  ?" 

"  It  has  crossed  my  mind,"  admitted  the  son.  "  I 
must  do  something.  I  Ve  wasted  time  and  money 
enough.  I  Ve  seen  much  younger  men  all  through 
the  West  and  South-west  taking  care  of  themselves. 
I  don't  think  I  was  particularly  fit  for  anything  out 
there,  but  I  am  ashamed  to  come  back  and  live 
upon  you,  sir." 

His  father  shook  his  head  with  an  ironical  sigh. 
"  Ah,  we  shall  never  have  a  real  aristocracy  while 
this  plebeian  reluctance  to  live  upon  a  parent  or  a 
wife  continues  the  animating  spirit  of  our  youth.  It 
strikes  at  the  root  of  the  whole  feudal  system.  I 
really  think  you  owe  me  an  apology,  Tom.  I  sup 
posed  you  wished  to  marry  the  girl's  money,  and  here 
you  are,  basely  seeking  to  go  into  business  with  her 
father." 

Young  Corey  laughed  again  like  a  son  who  per 
ceives  that  his  father  is  a  little  antiquated,  but  keeps 
a  filial  faith  in  his  wit.  "  I  don't  know  that  it 's  quite 
so  bad  as  that ;  but  the  thing  had  certainly  crossed 
my  mind.  I  don't  know  how  it's  to  be  approached, 
and  I  don't  know  that  it 's  at  all  possible.  But  I 
confess  that  I  '  took  to '  Colonel  Lapham  from  the 
moment  I  saw  him.  He  looked  as  if  he  '  meant 
business,'  and  I  mean  business  too." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  93 

The  father  smoked  thoughtfully.  "  Of  course 
people  do  go  into  all  sorts  of  things,  as-  you  say, 
and  I  don't  know  that  one  thing  is  more  ignoble 
than  another,  if  it 's  decent  and  large  enough.  In 
my  time  you  would  have  gone  into  the  China  trade 
or  the  India  trade — though  /  didn't ;  and  a  little 
later  cotton  would  have  been  your  manifest  destiny 
— though  it  wasn't  mine ;  but  now  a  man  may  do 
almost  anything.  The  real- estate  business  is  pretty 
full.  Yes,  if  you  have  a  deep  inward  vocation  for 
it,  I  don't  see  why  mineral  paint  shouldn't  do.  I 
fancy  it 's  easy  enough  approaching  the  matter.  We 
will  invite  Papa  Lapham  to  dinner,  and  talk  it  over 
with  him." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  that  would  be  exactly  the  way, 
sir,"  said  the  son,  smiling  at  his  father's  patrician 
unworldliness. 

"  No  ?    Why  not  ?  " 

"I'm  afraid  it  would  be  a  bad  start.  I  don't 
think  it  would  strike  him  as  business-like." 

"I  don't  see  why  he  should  be  punctilious,  if 
we  're  not." 

•  "  Ah,  we  might  say  that  if  he  were  making  the 
advances." 

"Well,  perhaps  you  are  right,  Tom.  What  is 
your  idea  1 " 

"I  haven't  a  very  clear  one.  It  seems  to  me  I  ought 
to  get  some  business  friend  of  ours,  whose  judgment 
he  would  respect,  to  speak  a  good  word  for  me." 

"  Give  you  a  character  ? " 

"  Yes.      And  of  course  I  must  go  to  Colonel 


94  THE  RISE  OF 

Lapham.  My  notion  would  be  to  inquire  pretty 
thoroughly  about  him,  and  then,  if  I  liked  the  look 
of  things,  to  go  right  down  to  Republic  Street  and 
let  him  see  what  he  could  do  with  me,  if  any 
thing." 

"  That  sounds  tremendously  practical  to  me,  Tom, 
though  it  may  be  just  the  wrong  way.  When  are 
you  going  down  to  Mount  Desert  ? " 

"To-morrow,  I  think,  sir,"  said  the  young  man. 
"  I  shall  turn  it  over  in  my  mind  while  I  'm  off." 

The  father  rose,  showing  something  more  than 
his  son's  height,  with  a  very  slight  stoop,  which  the 
son's  figure  had  not.  "  Well,"  he  said,  whimsically, 
"I  admire  your  spirit,  and  I  don't  deny  that  it  is 
justified  by  necessity.  It 's  a  consolation  to  think 
that  while  I  Ve  been  spending  and  enjoying,  I  have 
been  preparing  the  noblest  future  for  you — a  future 
of  industry  and  self-reliance.  You  never  could 
draw,  but  this  scheme  of  going  into  the  mineral- 
paint  business  shows  that  you  have  inherited  some 
thing  of  my  feeling  for  colour." 

The  son  laughed  once  more,  and  waiting  till  his 
father  was  well  on  his  way  upstairs,  turned  out  the 
gas  and  then  hurried  after  him  and  preceded  him 
into  his  chamber.  He  glanced  over  it  to  see  that 
everything  was  there,  to  his  father's  hand.  Then 
he  said,  "  Good  night,  sir,"  and  the  elder  responded, 
"  Good  night,  my  son,"  and  the  son  went  to  his  own 
room. 

Over  the  mantel  in  the  elder  Corey's  room  hung  a 
portrait  which  he  had  painted  of  his  own  father,  and 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  95 

now  he  stood  a  moment  and  looked  at  this  as  if 
struck  by  something  novel  in  it  The  resemblance 
between  his  son  and  the  old  India  merchant,  who 
had  followed  the  trade  from  Salem  to  Boston  when 
the  larger  city  drew  it  away  from  the  smaller,  must 
have  been  what  struck  him.  Grandfather  and 
grandson  had  both  the  Koman  nose  which  appears 
to  have  flourished  chiefly  at  the  formative  period  of 
the  republic,  and  which  occurs  more  rarely  in  the 
descendants  of  the  conscript  fathers,  though  it  still 
characterises  the  profiles  of  a  good  many  Boston 
ladies.  Bromfield  Corey  had  not  inherited  it,  and 
he  had  made  his  straight  nose  his  defence  when  the 
old  merchant  accused  him  of  a  want  of  energy.  He 
said,  "  What  could  a  man  do  whose  unnatural  father 
had  left  his  own  nose  away  from  him  ? "  This 
amused  but  did  not  satisfy  the  merchant.  "You 
must  do  something,"  he  said ;  "  and  it 's  for  you  to 
choose.  If  you  don't  like  the  India  trade,  go  into 
something  else.  Or,  take  up  law  or  medicine.  No 
Corey  yet  ever  proposed  to  do  nothing."  "Ah, 
then,  it 's  quite  time  one  of  us  made  a  beginning," 
urged  the  man  who  was  then  young,  and  who  was 
now  old,  looking  into  the  somewhat  fierce  eyes  of  his 
father's  portrait.  He  had  inherited  as  little  of  the 
fierceness  as  of  the  nose,  and  there  was  nothing  pre 
datory  in  his  son  either,  though  the  aquiline  beak 
had  come  down  to  him  in  such  force.  Bromfield 
Corey  liked  his  son  Tom  for  the  gentleness  which 
tempered  his  energy. 

"  Well  let  us  compromise,"  he  seemed  to  be  say- 


96  THE  RISE  OF 

ing  to  his  father's  portrait.  "I  will  travel." 
"Travel?  How  long1?"  the  keen  eyes  demanded. 
"  Oh,  indefinitely.  I  won't  be  hard  with  you, 
father."  He  could  see  the  eyes  soften,  and  the  smile 
of  yielding  come  over  his  father's  face ;  the  mer 
chant  could  not  resist  a  son  who  was  so  much  like 
his  dead  mother.  There  was  some  vague  under 
standing  between  them  that  Bromfield  Corey  was 
to  come  back  and  go  into  business  after  a  time,  but 
he  never  did  so.  He  travelled  about  over  Europe, 
and  travelled  handsomely,  frequenting  good  society 
everywhere,  and  getting  himself  presented  at  several 
courts,  at  a  period  when  it  was  a  distinction  to  do 
so.  He  had  always  sketched,  and  with  his  father's 
leave  he  fixed  himself  at  Rome,  where  he  remained 
studying  art  and  rounding  the  being  inherited  from 
his  Yankee  progenitors,  till  there  was  very  little  left 
of  the  ancestral  angularities.  After  ten  years  he 
came  home  and  painted  that  portrait  of  his  father. 
It  was  very  good,  if  a  little  amateurish,  and  he  might 
have  made  himself  a  name  as  a  painter  of  portraits  if 
he  had  not  had  so  much  money.  But  he  had  plenty 
of  money,  though  by  this  time  he  was  married  and 
beginning  to  have  a  family.  It  was  absurd  for  him 
to  paint  portraits  for  pay,  and  ridiculous  to  paint 
them  for  nothing ;  so  he  did  not  paint  them  at  all 
He  continued  a  dilettante,  never  quite  abandoning 
his  art,  but  working  at  it  fitfully,  and  talking  more 
about  it  than  working  at  it.  He  had  his  theory  of 
Titian's  method ;  and  now  and  then  a  Bostonian 
insisted  upon  buying  a  picture  of  him.  After  a 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  97 

while  he  hung  it  more  and  more  inconspicuously, 
and  said  apologetically,  "  Oh  yes !  that 's  one  of 
Bromfield  Corey's  things.  It  has  nice  qualities,  but 
it's  amateurish." 

In  process  of  time  the  money  seemed  less  abun 
dant.  There  were  shrinkages  of  one  kind  and 
another,  and  living  had  grown  much  more  expensive 
and  luxurious.  For  many  years  he  talked  about 
going  back  to  Rome,  but  he  never  went,  and  his 
children  grew  up  in  the  usual  way.  Before  he 
knew  it  his  son  had  him  out  to  his  class-day  spread 
at  Harvard,  and  then  he  had  his  son  on  his  hands. 
The  son  made  various  unsuccessful  provisions  for 
himself,  and  still  continued  upon  his  father's  hands, 
to  their  common  dissatisfaction,  though  it  was 
chiefly  the  younger  who  repined.  He  had  the 
Roman  nose  and  the  energy  without  the  oppor 
tunity,  and  at  one  of  the  reversions  his  father  said 
to  him,  "  You  ought  not  to  have  that  nose,  Tom ; 
then  you  would  do  very  well.  You  would  go  and 
travel,  as  I  did." 

LAPHAM  and  his  wife  continued  talking  after  he 
had  quelled  the  disturbance  in  his  daughters'  room 
overhead ;  and  their  talk  was  not  altogether  of  the 
new  house. 

"  I  tell  you,"  he  said,  "  if  I  had  that  fellow  in  the 
business  with  me  I  would  make  a  man  of  him." 

"  Well,  Silas  Lapham,"  returned  his  wife,  "  I  do 
believe  you  've  got  mineral  paint  on  the  brain.  Do 
you  suppose  a  fellow  like  young  Corey,  brought  up 
G 


98  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

the  way  he 's  been,  would  touch  mineral  paint  with 
a  ten-foot  pole  ? " 

"  Why  not  1 "  haughtily  asked  the  Colonel. 

"  Well,  if  you  don't  know  already,  there 's  no  use 
trying  to  tell  you." 


VL 


THE  Coreys  had  always  had  a  house  at  Nahant, 
but  after  letting  it  for  a  season  or  two  they  found 
they  could  get  on  without  it,  and  sold  it  at  the  son's 
instance,  who  foresaw  that  if  things  went  on  as  they 
were  going,  the  family  would  be  straitened  to  the 
point  of  changing  their  mode  of  life  altogether. 
They  began  to  be  of  the  people  of  whom  it  was  said 
that  they  stayed  in  town  very  late ;  and  when  the 
ladies  did  go  away,  it  was  for  a  brief  summering  in 
this  place  and  that.  The  father  remained  at  home 
altogether  ;  and  the  son  joined  them  in  the  intervals 
of  his  enterprises,  which  occurred  only  too  often. 

At  Bar  Harbour,  where  he  now  went  to  find  them, 
after  his  winter  in  Texas,  he  confessed  to  his  mother 
that  there  seemed  no  very  good  opening  there  for 
him.  He  might  do  as  well  as  Loring  Stanton,  but 
he  doubted  if  Stanton  was  doing  very  well.  Then 
he  mentioned  the  new  project  which  he  had  been 
thinking  over.  She  did  not  deny  that  there  was 
something  in  it,  but  she  could  not  think  of  any 
young  man  who  had  gone  into  such  a  business  as 
that,  and  it  appeared  to  her  that  he  might  as  well 
go  into  a  patent  medicine  or  a  stove-polish. 

99 


1 00  THE  RISE  OF 

"  There  was  one  of  his  hideous  advertisements," 
she  said,  "  painted  on  a  reef  that  we  saw  as  we  came 
down." 

Corey  smiled.  "  Well,  I  suppose,  if  it  was  in  a 
good  state  of  preservation,  that  is  proof  positive  of 
the  efficacy  of  the  paint  on  the  hulls  of  vessels." 

"  It 's  very  distasteful  to  me,  Tom,"  said  his 
mother ;  and  if  there  was  something  else  in  her 
mind,  she  did  not  speak  more  plainly  of  it  than  to 
add:  "It's  not  only  the  kind  of  business,  but  the 
kind  of  people  you  would  be  mixed  up  with." 

"  I  thought  you  didn't  find  them  so  very  bad," 
suggested  Corey. 

"  I  hadn't  seen  them  in  Nankeen  Square  then." 

"  You  can  see  them  on  the  water  side  of  Beacon 
Street  when  you  go  back." 

Then  he  told  of  his  encounter  with  the  Lapham 
family  in  their  new  house.  At  the  end  his  mother 
merely  said,  "  It  is  getting  very  common  down 
there,"  and  she  did  not  try  to  oppose  anything 
further  to  his  scheme. 

The  young  man  went  to  see  Colonel  Lapham 
shortly  after  his  return  to  Boston.  He  paid  his 
visit  at  Lapham's  office,  and  if  he  had  studied 
simplicity  in  his  summer  dress  he  could  not  have 
presented  himself  in  a  figure  more  to  the  mind  of  a 
practical  man.  His  hands  and  neck  still  kept  the 
brown  of  the  Texan  suns  and  winds,  and  he  looked 
as  business-like  as  Lapham  himself. 

He  spoke  up  promptly  and  briskly  in  the  outer 
office,  and  caused  the  pretty  girl  to  look  away  from 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  101 

her  copying  at  him.  "Is  Mr.  Lapham  in?"  he 
asked ;  and  after  that  moment  for  reflection  which 
an  array  of  book-keepers  so  addressed  likes  to  give 
the  inquirer,  a  head  was  lifted  from  a  ledger  and 
nodded  toward  the  inner  office. 

Lapham  had  recognised  the  voice,  and  he  was 
standing,  in  considerable  perplexity,  to  receive  Corey, 
when  the  young  man  opened  his  painted  glass  door. 
It  was  a  hot  afternoon,  and  Lapham  was  in  his  shirt 
sleeves.  Scarcely  a  trace  of  the  boastful  hospitality 
with  which  he  had  welcomed  Corey  to  his  house  a 
few  days  before  lingered  in  his  present  address.  He 
looked  at  the  young  man's  face,  as  if  he  expected 
him  to  despatch  whatever  unimaginable  affair  he 
had  come  upon. 

"  Won't  you  sit  down  ?  How  are  you  1  You  '11 
excuse  me,"  he  added,  in  brief  allusion  to  the  shirt 
sleeves.  "  I  'm  about  roasted." 

Corey  laughed,  "  I  wish  you  'd  let  me  take  off 
my  coat." 

"  Why,  take  it  off !"  cried  the  Colonel,  with  instant 
pleasure.  There  is  something  in  human  nature 
which  causes  the  man  in  his  shirtrsleeves  to  wish  all 
other  men  to  appear  in  the  same  deshabille. 

"  I  will,  if  you  ask  me  after  I  've  talked  with  you 
two  minutes,"  said  the  young  fellow,  companion- 
ably  pulling  up  the  chair  offered  him  toward  the 
desk  where  Lapham  had  again  seated  himself. 
"  But  perhaps  you  haven't  got  two  minutes  to  give 
me?" 

"  Oh  yes,   I  have,"  said  the  Colonel      "  I  was 


102  THE  RISE  OF 

just  going  to  knock  off.  I  can  give  you  twenty,  and 
then  I  shall  have  fifteen  minutes  to  catch  the  boat." 

"  All  right,"  said  Corey.  "  I  want  you  to  take 
me  into  the  mineral  paint  business." 

The  Colonel  sat  dumb.  He  twisted  his  thick 
neck,  and  looked  round  at  the  door  to  see  if  it  was 
shut.  He  would  not  have  liked  to  have  any  of 
those  fellows  outside  hear  him,  but  there  is  no 
saying  what  sum  of  money  he  would  not  have  given 
if  his  wife  had  been  there  to  hear  what  Corey  had 
just  said. 

"  I  suppose,"  continued  the  young  man,  "  I  could 
have  got  several  people  whose  names  you  know  to 
back  my  industry  and  sobriety,  and  say  a  word  for 
my  business  capacity.  But  I  thought  I  wouldn't 
trouble  anybody  for  certificates  till  I  found  whether 
there  was  a  chance,  or  the  ghost  of  one,  of  your 
wanting  me.  So  I  came  straight  to  you." 

Lapham  gathered  himself  together  as  well  as  he 
could.  He  had  not  yet  forgiven  Corey  for  Mrs.  Lap- 
ham's  insinuation  that  he  would  feel  himself  too 
good  for  the  mineral  paint  business ;  and  though  he 
was  dispersed  by  that  astounding  shot  at  first,  he  was 
not  going  to  let  any  one  even  hypothetically  despise 
his  paint  with  impunity.  "  How  do  you  think  I  am 
going  to  take  you  on  1 "  They  took  on  hands  at  the 
works ;  and  Lapham  put  it  as  if  Corey  were  a  hand 
coming  to  him  for  employment.  Whether  he  satis 
fied  himself  by  this  or  not,  he  reddened  a  little  after 
he  had  said  it. 

Corey   answered,   ignorant   of    the    offence :     "  I 


SILAS  LATHAM.  103 

haven't  a  very  clear  idea,  I'm  afraid;  but  I've 
been  looking  a  little  into  the  matter  from  the  out 
side " 

"  I  hope  you  hain't  been  paying  any  attention  to 
that  fellow's  stuff  in  the  Events?"  Lapham  inter 
rupted.  Since  Bartley's  interview  had  appeared, 
Lapham  had  regarded  it  with  very  mixed  feelings. 
At  first  it  gave  him  a  glow  of  secret  pleasure, 
blended  with  doubt  as  to  how  his  wife  would  like 
the  use  Bartley  had  made  of  her  in  it.  But  she  had 
not  seemed  to  notice  it  much,  and  Lapham  had  ex 
perienced  the  gratitude  of  the  man  who  escapes. 
Then  his  girls  had  begun  to  make  fun  of  it;  and 
though  he  did  not  mind  Penelope's  jokes  much, 
he  did  not  like  to  see  that  Irene's  gentility  was 
wounded.  Business  friends  met  him  with  the  kind 
of  knowing  smile  about  it  that  implied  their  sense 
of  the  fraudulent  character  of  its  praise — the  smile 
of  men  who  had  been  there  and  who  knew  how  it 
was  themselves.  Lapham  had  his  misgivings  as  to 
how  his  clerks  and  underlings  looked  at  it ;  he 
treated  them  with  stately  severity  for  a  while  after 
it  came  out,  and  he  ended  by  feeling  rather  sore 
about  it.  He  took  it  for  granted  that  everybody 
had  read  it. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  replied  Corey, 
"  I  don't  see  the  Events  regularly." 

"  Oh,  it  was  nothing.  They  sent  a  fellow  down 
here  to  interview  me,  and  he  got  everything  about 
as  twisted  as  he  could." 

"  I   believe   they   always   do,"  said   Corey.       "  I 


104  THE  RISE  OF 

hadn't  seen  it  Perhaps  it  came  out  before  I  got 
home." 

"  Perhaps  it  did." 

"  My  notion  of  making  myself  useful  to  you  was 
based  on  a  hint  I  got  from  one  of  your  own  circu 
lars." 

Lapham  was  proud  of  those  circulars  ;  he  thought 
they  read  very  well.  "  What  was  that  1 " 

"  I  could  put  a  little  capital  into  the  business," 
said  Corey,  with  the  tentative  accent  of  a  man  who 
chances  a  thing.  "  I  Ve  got  a  little  money,  but  I 
didn't  imagine  you  cared  for  anything  of  that 
kind." 

"  No,  sir,  I  don't,"  returned  the  Colonel  bluntly. 
"  I  've  had  one  partner,  and  one 's  enough." 

"  Yes,"  assented  the  young  man,  who  doubtless 
had  his  own  ideas  as  to  eventualities — or  perhaps 
rather  had  the  vague  hopes  of  youth.  "  I  didn't 
come  to  propose  a  partnership.  But  I  see  that  you 
are  introducing  your  paint  into  the  foreign  markets, 
and  there  I  really  thought  I  might  be  of  use  to  you, 
and  to  myself  too." 

"  How  1 "  asked  the  Colonel  scantly. 

"  Well,  I  know  two  or  three  languages  pretty 
well.  I  know  French,  and  I  know  German,  and 
I  Ve  got  a  pretty  fair  sprinkling  of  Spanish." 

"  You  mean  that  you  can  talk  them  1 "  asked  the 
Colonel,  with  the  mingled  awe  and  slight  that  such 
a  man  feels  for  such  accomplishments. 

"  Yes ;  and  I  can  write  an  intelligible  letter  in 
either  of  them." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  105 

Lapham  rubbed  his  nose.  "It's  easy  enough  to 
get  all  the  letters  we  want  translated." 

"  Well,"  pursued  Corey,  not  showing  his  dis 
couragement  if  he  felt  any,  "  I  know  the  countries 
where  you  want  to  introduce  this  paint  of  yours. 
I  Ve  been  there.  I  Ve  been  in  Germany  and  France, 
and  I  've  been  in  South  America  and  Mexico ;  I  've 
been  in  Italy,  of  course.  I  believe  I  could  go  to  any 
of  those  countries  and  place  it  to  advantage." 

Lapham  had  listened  with  a  trace  of  persuasion  in 
his  face,  but  now  he  shook  his  head. 

"  It 's  placing  itself  as  fast  as  there 's  any  call  for 
it.  It  wouldn't  pay  us  to  send  anybody  out  to  look 
after  it.  Your  salary  and  expenses  would  eat  up 
about  all  we  should  make  on  it." 

"  Yes,"  returned  the  young  man  intrepidly,  "  if 
you  had  to  pay  me  any  salary  and  expenses." 

"  You  don't  propose  to  work  for  nothing  ?" 

"  I  propose  to  work  for  a  commission."  The 
Colonel  was  beginning  to  shake  his  head  again,  but 
Corey  hurried  on.  "  I  haven't  come  to  you  without 
making  some  inquiries  about  the  paint,  and  I  know 
how  it  stands  with  those  who  know  best.  I  believe 
in  it." 

Lapham  lifted  his  head  and  looked  at  the  young 
man,  deeply  moved. 

"It's  the  best  paint  in  God's  universe,"  he  said, 
with  the  solemnity  of  prayer. 

"  It 's  the  best  in  the  market,"  said  Corey  ;  and  he 
repeated,  "I  believe  in  it." 

"  You  believe  in  it,"  began  the  Colonel,  and  then 


106  THE  RISE  OF 

he  stopped.  If  there  had  really  been  any  purchasing 
power  in  money,  a  year's  income  would  have  bought 
Mrs.  Lapham's  instant  presence.  He  warmed  and 
softened  to  the  young  man  in  every  way,  not  only 
because  he  must  do  so  to  any  one  who  believed  in 
his  paint,  but  because  he  had  done  this  innocent 
person  the  wrong  of  listening  to  a  defamation  of  his 
instinct  and  good  sense,  and  had  been  willing  to  see 
him  suffer  for  a  purely  supposititious  offence. 

Corey  rose. 

"  You  mustn't  let  me  outstay  my  twenty  minutes," 
he  said,  taking  out  his  watch.  "  I  don't  expect  you 
to  give  a  decided  answer  on  the  spot.  All  that  I  ask 
is  that  you  11  consider  my  proposition." 

"Don't  hurry,"  said  Lapham.  "  Sit  still !  I  want 
to  tell  you  about  this  paint,"  he  added,  in  a  voice 
husky  with  the  feeling  that  his  hearer  could  not 
divine.  "  I  want  to  tell  you  all  about  it." 

"  I  could  walk  with  you  to  the  boat,"  suggested 
the  young  man. 

"  Never  mind  the  boat !  I  can  take  the  next 
one.  Look  here  !"  The  Colonel  pulled  open  a 
drawer,  as  Corey  sat  down  again,  and  took  out  a 
photograph  of  the  locality  of  the  mine.  "  Here  's 
where  we  get  it.  This  photograph  don't  half  do  the 
place  justice,"  he  said,  as  if  the  imperfect  art  had 
slighted  the  features  of  a  beloved  face.  "  It 's  one  of 
the  sightliest  places  in  the  country,  and  here 's  the 
very  spot  " — he  covered  it  with  his  huge  forefinger 
— "  where  my  father  found  that  paint,  more  than 
forty — years — ago.  Yes,  sir  !" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  107 

He  went  on,  and  told  the  story  in  unsparing 
detail,  while  his  chance  for  the  boat  passed  unheeded, 
and  the  clerks  in  the  outer  office  hung  up  their  linen 
office  coats  and  put  on  their  seersucker  or  flannel 
street  coats.  The  young  lady  went  too,  and  nobody 
Avas  left  but  the  porter,  who  made  from  time  to  time 
a  noisy  demonstration  of  fastening  a  distant  blind, 
or  putting  something  in  place.  At  last  the  Colonel 
roused  himself  from  the  autobiographical  delight  of 
the  history  of  his  paint.  "  Well,  sir,  that 's  the 
story." 

"  It 's  an  interesting  story,"  said  Corey,  with  a 
long  breath,  as  they  rose  together,  and  Lapham  put 
on  his  coat. 

"  That 's  what  it  is,"  said  the  Colonel.  "  Well !" 
he  added,  "  I  don't  see  but  what  we  've  got  to  have 
another  talk  about  this  thing.  It 's  a  surprise  to  me, 
and  I  don't  see  exactly  how  you  're  going  to  make  it 

pay." 

"  I  'm  willing  to  take  the  chances,"  answered  Corey. 
"  As  I  said,  I  believe  in  it.  I  should  try  South 
America  first.  I  should  try  Chili." 

"  Look  here  !"  said  Lapham,  with  his  watch  in  his 
hand.  "  I  like  to  get  things  over.  We  Ve  just  got 
time  for  the  six  o'clock  boat.  Why  don't  you  come 
down  with  me  to  Nantasket  ?  I  can  give  you  a  bed 
as  well  as  not.  And  then  we  can  finish  up." 

The  impatience  of  youth  in  Corey  responded  to 
the  impatience  of  temperament  in  his  elder. 

"Why,  I  don't  see  why  I  shouldn't,"  he  allowed 
himself  to  say.  "  I  confess  I  should  like  to  have  it 


108  THE  RISE  OF 

finished  up  myself,  if  it  could  be  finished  up  in  the 
right  way." 

"Well,  we'll  see.  Dennis!"  Lapham  called  to 
the  remote  porter,  and  the  man  came.  "  Want  to 
send  any  word  home  ? "  he  asked  Corey. 

"  No ;  my  father  and  I  go  and  come  as  we  like, 
without  keeping  account  of  each  other.  If  I  don't 
come  home,  he  knows  that  I  'm  not  there.  That 's 
all" 

"  Well,  that 's  convenient.  You  11  find  you  can't 
do  that  when  you  're  married.  Never  mind,  Dennis," 
said  the  Colonel. 

He  had  time  to  buy  two  newspapers  on  the  wharf 
before  he  jumped  on  board  the  steam-boat  with 
Corey.  "  Just  made  it,"  he  said ;  "  and  that 's  what  I 
like  to  do.  I  can't  stand  it  to  be  aboard  much  more 
than  a  minute  before  she  shoves  out."  He  gave  one 
of  the  newspapers  to  Corey  as  he  spoke,  and  set  him 
the  example  of  catching  up  a  camp-stool  on  their 
way  to  that  point  on  the  boat  which  his  experience 
had  taught  him  was  the  best.  He  opened  his  paper 
at  once  and  began  to  run  over  its  news,  while  the 
young  man  watched  the  spectacular  recession  of 
the  city,  and  was  vaguely  conscious  of  the  people 
about  him,  and  of  the  gay  life  of  the  water  round 
the  boat.  The  air  freshened ;  the  craft  thinned 
in  number ;  they  met  larger  sail,  lagging  slowly 
inward  in  the  afternoon  light ;  the  islands  of  the 
bay  waxed  and  waned  as  the  steamer  approached 
and  left  them  behind. 

"I  hate  to  see  them  stirring  up  those  Southern 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  109 

fellows  again,"  said  the  Colonel,  speaking  into  the 
paper  on  his  lap.  "  Seems  to  me  it 's  time  to  let 
those  old  issues  go." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  young  man.  "  What  are  they 
doing  now  1 " 

"  Oh,  stirring  up  the  Confederate  brigadiers  in 
Congress.  I  don't  like  it.  Seems  to  me,  if  our 
party  hain't  got  any  other  stock-in-trade,  we  better 
shut  up  shop  altogether."  Lapham  went  on,  as  he 
scanned  his  newspaper,  to  give  his  ideas  of  public 
questions,  in  a  fragmentary  way,  while  Corey  listened 
patiently,  and  waited  for  him  to  come  back  to  busi 
ness.  He  folded  up  his  paper  at  last,  and  stuffed  it 
into  his  coat  pocket.  "  There 's  one  thing  I  always 
make  it  a  rule  to  do,"  he  said,  "  and  that  is  to  give 
my  mind  a  complete  rest  from*  business  while  I  'm 
going  down  on  the  boat.  I  like  to  get  the  fresh  air 
all  through  me,  soul  and  body.  I  believe  a  man  can 
give  his  mind  a  rest,  just  the  same  as  he  can  give 
his  legs  a  rest,  or  his  back.  All  he 's  got  to  do  is  to 
use  his  will-power.  Why,  I  suppose,  if  I  hadn't 
adopted  some  such  rule,  with  the  strain  I  've  had  on 
me  for  the  last  ten  years,  I  should  'a'  been  a  dead 
man  long  ago.  That's  the  reason  I  like  a  horse. 
You  've  got  to  give  your  mind  to  the  horse  ;  you  can't 
help  it,  unless  you  want  to  break  your  neck ;  but  a 
boat 's  different,  and  there  you  got  to  use  your  will 
power.  You  got  to  take  your  mind  right  up  and 
put  it  where  you  Avant  it.  I  make  it  a  rule  to  read 

the  paper  on  the  boat Hold  on  !  "  he  interrupted 

himself  to  prevent  Corey  from  paying  his  fare  to 


110  THE  RISE  OF 

the  man  who  had  come  round  for  it.  "  I  've  got 
tickets.  And  when  I  get  through  the  paper,  I  try 
to  get  somebody  to  talk  to,  or  I  watch  the  people. 
It 's  an  astonishing  thing  to  me  where  they  all  come 
from.  I  Ve  been  riding  up  and  down  on  these  boats 
for  six  or  seven  years,  and  I  don't  know  but  very 
few  of  the  faces  I  see  on  board.  Seems  to  be  a 
perfectly  fresh  lot  every  time.  Well,  of  course  ! 
Town  's  full  of  strangers  in  the  summer  season,  any 
way,  and  folks  keep  coming  down  from  the  country. 
They  think  it's  a  great  thing  to  get  down  to  the 
beach,  and  they  've  all  heard  of  the  electric  light  on 
the  water,  and  they  want  to  see  it.  But  you  take 
faces  now !  The  astonishing  thing  to  me  is  not 
what  a  face  tells,  but  what  it  don't  tell.  When  you 
think  of  what  a  man  is,  or  a  woman  is,  and  what 
most  of  'em  have  been  through  before  they  get  to  be 
thirty,  it  seems  as  if  their  experience  would  burn  right 
through.  But  it  don't.  I  like  to  watch  the  couples, 
and  try  to  make  out  which  are  engaged,  or  going  to 
be,  and  which  are  married,  or  better  be.  But  half 
the  time  I  can't  make  any  sort  of  guess.  Of  course, 
where  they  're  young  and  kittenish,  you  can  tell ; 
but  where  they  're  anyways  on,  you  can't.  Heigh  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  think  you  're  right,"  said  Corey,  not  per 
fectly  reconciled  to  philosophy  in  the  place  of  busi 
ness,  but  accepting  it  as  he  must. 

"  Well,"  said  the  Colonel,  "  I  don't  suppose  it  was 
meant  we  should  know  what  was  in  each  other's 
minds.  It  would  take  a  man  out  of  his  own  hands. 
As  long  as  he's  in  his  own  hands,  there's  some 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  Ill 

hopes  of  his  doing  something  with  himself ;  but  if 
a  fellow  has  been  found  out- — even  if  he  hasn't  been 
found  out  to  be  so  very  bad — it 's  pretty  much  all 
up  with  him.  No,  sir.  I  don't  want  to  know 
people  through  and  through." 

The  greater  part  of  the  crowd  on  board — and,  of 
course,  the  boat  was  crowded — looked  as  if  they 
might  not  only  be  easily  but  safely  known.  There 
was  little  style  and  no  distinction  among  them  ; 
they  were  people  who  were  going  down  to  the  beach 
for  the  fun  or  the  relief  of  it,  and  were  able  to  afford 
it.  In  face  they  were  commonplace,  with  nothing 
but  the  American  poetry  of  vivid  purpose  to  light 
them  up,  where  they  did  not  wholly  lack  fire.  But 
they  were  nearly  all  shrewd  and  friendly-looking, 
with  an  apparent  readiness  for  the  humorous  inti 
macy  native  to  us  all.  The  women  were  dandified 
in  dress,  according  to  their  means  and  taste,  and 
the  men  differed  from  each  other  in  degrees  of 
indifference  to  it.  To  a  straw-hatted  population, 
such  as  ours  is  in  summer,  no  sort  of  personal 
dignity  is  possible.  We  have  not  even  the  power 
over  observers  which  comes  from  the  fantasticality 
of  an  Englishman  when  he  discards  the  conventional 
dress.  In  our  straw  hats  and  our  serge  or  flannel 
sacks  we  are  no  more  imposing  than  a  crowd  of 
boys. 

"  Some  day,"  said  Lapham,  rising  as  the  boat 
drew  near  the  wharf  of  the  final  landing,  "  there  's 
going  to  be  an  awful  accident  on  these  boats.  J  ust 
look  at  that  jam.' 


112  THE  RISE  OF 

He  meant  the  people  thickly  packed  on  the  pier, 
and  under  strong  restraint  of  locks  and  gates,  to 
prevent  them  from  rushing  on  board  the  boat  and 
possessing  her  for  the  return  trip  before  she  had 
landed  her  Xantasket  passengers. 

"  Overload  'em  every  time,"  he  continued,  with 
a  sort  of  dry,  impersonal  concern  at  the  impending 
calamity,  as  if  it  could  not  possibly  include  him. 
"  They  take  about  twice  as  many  as  they  ought  to 
carry,  and  about  ten  times  as  many  as  they  could 
save  if  anything  happened.  Yes,  sir,  it 's  bound  to 
come.  Hello  !  There 's  my  girl ! "  He  took  out 
his  folded  newspaper  and  waved  it  toward  a  group 
of  phaetons  and  barouches  drawn  up  on  the  pier 
a  little  apart  from  the  pack  of  people,  and  a  lady 
in  one  of  them  answered  with  a  nourish  of  her 
parasol. 

When  he  had  made  his  way  with  his  guest  through 
the  crowd,  she  began  to  speak  to  her  father  before 
she  noticed  Corey.  "Well,  Colonel,  you've  im 
proved  your  last  chance.  We've  been  coming  to 
every  boat  since  four  o'clock, — or  Jerry  has, — and 
I  told  mother  that  I  would  come  myself  once,  and 
see  if  /  couldn't  fetch  you ;  and  if  I  failed,  you 
could  walk  next  time.  You  're  getting  perfectly 
spoiled." 

The  Colonel  enjoyed  letting  her  scold  him  to  the 
end  before  he  said,  with  a  twinkle  of  pride  in  his 
guest  and  satisfaction  in  her  probably  being  able 
to  hold  her  own  against  any  discomfiture,  "  I  've 
brought  Mr.  Corey  down  for  the  night  with  me, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  113 

and  I  was  showing  him  things  all  the  way,  and  it 
took  time." 

The  young  fellow  was  at  the  side  of  the  open 
beach-wagon,  making  a  quick  bow,  and  Penelope 
Lapham  was  cozily  drawling,  "Oh,  how  do  you  do, 
Mr.  Corey]"  before  the  Colonel  had  finished  his 
explanation. 

"Get  right  in  there,  alongside  of  Miss  Lapham, 
Mr.  Corey,"  he  said,  pulling  himself  up  into  the 
place  beside  the  driver.  "  No,  no,"  he  had  added 
quickly,  at  some  signs  of  polite  protest  in  the  young 
man,  "I  don't  give  up  the  best  place  to  anybody. 
Jerry,  suppose  you  let  me  have  hold  of  the  leathers 
a  minute." 

This  was  his  way  of  taking  the  reins  from  the 
driver ;  and  in  half  the  time  he  specified,  he  had 
skilfully  turned  the  vehicle  on  the  pier,  among  the 
crooked  lines  and  groups  of  foot-passengers,  and 
was  spinning  up  the  road  toward  the  stretch  of 
verandaed  hotels  and  restaurants  in  the  sand  along 
the  shore.  "  Pretty  gay  down  here,"  he  said,  indi 
cating  all  this  with  a  turn  of  his  whip,  as  he  left  it 
behind  him.  "  But  I  Ve  got  about  sick  of  hotels  ; 
and  this  summer  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  'd  take 
a  cottage.  Well,  Pen,  how  are  the  folks  V  He 
looked  half-way  round  for  her  answer,  and  with 
the  eye  thus  brought  to  bear  upon  her  he  was 
able  to  give  her  a  wink  of  supreme  content.  The 
Colonel,  with  no  sort  of  ulterior  design,  and  nothing 
but  his  triumph  over  Mrs.  Lapham  definitely  in  his 
mind,  was  feeling,  as  he  would  have  said,  about  right. 
H 


114  THE  RISE  OF 

The  girl  smiled  a  daughter's  amusement  at  her 
father's  boyishness.  "I  don't  think  there's  much 
change  since  morning.  Did  Irene  have  a  headache 
when  you  left  1 " 

"  No,"  said  the  Colonel. 

"  Well,  then,  there 's  that  to  report. " 

"  Pshaw  ! "  said  the  Colonel  with  vexation  in  his 
tone. 

"  I  'm  sorry  Miss  Irene  isn't  well,"  said  Corey 
politely. 

"  I  think  she  must  have  got  it  from  walking  too 
long  on  the  beach.  The  air  is  so  cool  here  that  you 
forget  how  hot  the  sun  is." 

"  Yes,  that 's  true,"  assented  Corey. 

"A  good  night's  rest  will  make  it  all  right,"  sug 
gested  the  Colonel,  without  looking  round.  "But 
you  girls  have  got  to  look  out." 

"If  you're  fond  of  walking,"  said  Corey,  "I 
suppose  you  find  the  beach  a  temptation." 

"Oh,  it  isn't  so  much  that,"  returned  the  girl. 
"You  keep  walking  on  and  on  because  it's  so 
smooth  and  straight  before  you.  We've  been 
here  so  often  that  we  know  it  all  by  heart — just 
how  it  looks  at  high  tide,  and  how  it  looks  at  low 
tide,  and  how  it  looks  after  a  storm.  We're  as 
well  acquainted  with  the  crabs  and  stranded  jelly 
fish  as  we  are  with  the  children  digging  in  the  sand 
and  the  people  sitting  under  umbrellas.  I  think 
they  're  always  the  same,  all  of  them." 

The  Colonel  left  the  talk  to  the  young  people. 
When  he  spoke  next  it  was  to  say,  "Well,  here 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  115 

we  are ! "  and  he  turned  from  the  highway  and 
drove  up  in  front  of  a  brown  cottage  with  a  ver 
milion  roof,  and  a  group  of  geraniums  clutching 
the  rock  that  cropped  up  in  the  loop  formed  by 
the  road.  It  was  treeless  and  bare  all  round,  and 
the  ocean,  unnecessarily  vast,  weltered  away  a  little 
more  than  a  stone's-cast  from  the  cottage.  A  hos 
pitable  smell  of  supper  filled  the  air,  and  Mrs. 
Lapham  was  on  the  veranda,  with  that  demand 
in  her  eyes  for  her  belated  husband's  excuses,  which 
she  was  obliged  to  check  on  her  tongue  at  sight  of 
Corey. 


VII. 

THE  exultant  Colonel  swung  himself  lightly  down 
from  his  seat.  "  I  've  brought  Mr.  Corey  with  me," 
he  nonchalantly  explained. 

Mrs.  Lapham  made  their  guest  welcome,  and  the 
Colonel  showed  him  to  his  room,  briefly  assuring  him 
self  that  there  was  nothing  wanting  there.  Then 
he  went  to  wash  his  own  hands,  carelessly  ignoring 
the  eagerness  with  which  his  wife  pursued  him  to 
their  chamber. 

"  What  gave  Irene  a  headache  ? "  he  asked, 
making  himself  a  fine  lather  for  his  hairy  paws. 

"Never  you  mind  Irene,"  promptly  retorted  his 
wife.  "How  came  he  to  comej  Did  you  press 
him  1  If  you  did,  I  '11  never  forgive  you,  Silas  ! " 

The  Colonel  laughed,  and  his  wife  shook  him  by 
the  shoulder  to  make  him  laugh  lower.  "  'Sh  ! " 
she  whispered.  "Do  you  want  him  to  hear  every 
thing  ?  Did  you  urge  him  1 " 

The  Colonel  laughed  the  more.  He  was  going  to 
get  all  the  good  out  of  this.  "  No,  I  didn't  urge  him. 
Seemed  to  want  to  come." 

"  I  don't  believe  it.     Where  did  you  meet  him  ?  " 

"At  the  office." 

116 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  117 

"What  office]" 

"  Mine." 

"  Nonsense  !     What  was  he  doing  there  1 " 

"  Oh,  nothing  much." 

"  What  did  he  come  for  V 

"  Come  for  1  Oh  !  he  said  he  wanted  to  go  into 
the  mineral  paint  business." 

Mrs.  Lapham  dropped  into  a  chair,  and  watched 
his  bulk  shaken  with  smothered  laughter.  "  Silas 
Lapham,"  she  gasped,  "  if  you  try  to  get  off  any 
more  of  those  things  on  me " 

The  Colonel  applied  himself  to  the  towel.  "  Had 
a  notion  he  could  work  it  in  South  America.  /  don't 
know  what  he  's  up  to." 

"Never  mind!"  cried  his  wife.  "I'll  get  even 
with  you  yet." 

"  So  I  told  him  he  had  better  come  down  and 
talk  it  over,"  continued  the  Colonel,  in  well-affected 
simplicity.  "  I  knew  he  wouldn't  touch  it  with  a 
ten-foot  pole." 

"  Go  on  !"  threatened  Mrs.  Lapham. 

"  Right  thing  to  do,  wa'n't  it?" 

A  tap  was  heard  at  the  door,  and  Mrs.  Lapham 
answered  it.  A  maid  announced  supper.  "  Very 
well,"  she  said,  "  come  to  tea  now.  But  I  '11  make 
you  pay  for  this,  Silas." 

Penelope  had  gone  to  her  sister's  room  as  soon  as 
she  entered  the  house. 

"  Is  your  head  any  better,  'Rene  ?"  she  asked. 

"  Yes,  a  little,"  came  a  voice  from  the  pillows. 
"  But  I  shall  not  come  to  tea.  I  don't  want  any- 


118  THE  RISE  OF 

thing,  If  I  keep  still,  I  shall  be  all  right  by  morn- 
ing." 

"  Well,  I  'm  sorry,"  said  the  elder  sister.  "  He 's 
come  down  with  father." 

"He  hasn't!  Who?"  cried  Irene,  starting  up  in 
simultaneous  denial  and  demand. 

"  Oh,  well,  if  you  say  he  hasn't,  what 's  the  use  of 
my  telling  you  who  '" 

"Oh,  how  can  you  treat  me  so!"  moaned  the 
sufferer.  "  What  do  you  mean,  Pen  1" 

"  I  guess  I  'd  better  not  tell  you,"  said  Penelope, 
watching  her  like  a  cat  playing  with  a  mouse.  "  If 
you  're  not  coming  to  tea,  it  would  just  excite  you 
for  nothing." 

The  mouse  moaned  and  writhed  upon  the  bed. 

"  Oh,  I  wouldn't  treat  you  so  !  " 

The  cat  seated  herself  across  the  room,  and  asked 
quietly — 

"  Well,  what  could  you  do  if  it  was  Mr.  Corey  ? 
You  couldn't  come  to  tea,  you  say.  But  he  '11  excuse 
you.  /'ve  told  him  you  had  a  headache.  Why,  of 
course  you  can't  come  !  It  would  be  too  barefaced. 
But  you  needn't  be  troubled,  Irene  ;  I  '11  do  my  best 
to  make  the  time  pass  pleasantly  for  him."  Here 
the  cat  gave  a  low  titter,  and  the  mouse  girded  itself 
up  with  a  momentary  courage  and  self-respect. 

"  I  should  think  you  would  be  ashamed  to  come 
here  and  tease  me  so. " 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't  believe  me," 
argued  Penelope.  "  Why  shouldn't  he  come  down 
with  father,  if  father  asked  him  1  and  he  'd  be  sure 


SILAS  LAPH AM.  119 

to  if  he  thought  of  it.     I  don't  see  any  p'ints  about 
that  frog  that  's  any  better  than  any  other  frog." 

The  sense  of  her  sister's  helplessness  was  too  much 
for  the  tease  ;  she  broke  down  in  a  fit  of  smothered 
laughter,  which  convinced  her  victim  that  it  was 
nothing  but  an  ill-timed  joke. 

"  Well,  Pen,  I  wouldn't  use  you  so,"  she  whim 
pered. 

Penelope  threw  herself  on  the  bed  beside  her. 

"  Oh,  poor  Irene  !  He  is  here.  It 's  a  solemn, 
fact."  And  she  caressed  and  soothed  her  sister, 
while  she  choked  with  laughter.  "  You  must  get 
up  and  come  out.  I  don't  know  what  brought  him 
here,  but  here  he  is." 

"  It 's  too  late  now,"  said  Irene  desolately.  Then 
she  added,  with  a  wilder  despair  :  "  What  a  fool  I 
was  to  take  that  walk  !" 

"  Well,"  coaxed  her  sister,  "  come  out  and  get  some 
tea.  The  tea  will  do  you  good." 

"  No,  no ;  I  can't  come.  But  send  me  a  cup 
here." 

"  Yes,  and  then  perhaps  you  can  see  him  later  in 
the  evening." 

"  I  shall  not  see  him  at  all." 

An  hour  after  Penelope  came  back  to  her  sister's 
room  and  found  her  before  her  glass.  "  You  might 
as  well  have  kept  still,  and  been  well  by  morning, 
'Rene,"  she  said.  "  As  soon  as  we  were  done  father 
said,  '  Well,  Mr.  Corey  and  I  have  got  to  talk  over 
a  little  matter  of  business,  and  we'll  excuse  you, 
ladies.'  He  looked  at  mother  in  a  way  that  I  guess 


1 20  THE  RISE  OF 

was  pretty  hard  to  bear.  'Eene,  you  ought  to  have 
heard  the  Colonel  swelling  at  supper.  It  would 
have  made  you  feel  that  all  he  said  the  other  day 
was  nothing." 

Mrs.  Lapham  suddenly  opened  the  door. 

"  Now,  see  here,  Pen,"  she  said,  as  she  closed  it 
behind  her,  "  I  Ve  had  just  as  much  as  I  can  stand 
from  your  father,  and  if  you  don't  tell  me  this  instant 
what  it  all  means ' 

She  left  the  consequences  to  imagination,  and 
Penelope  replied  with  her  mock  soberness — 

"  Well,  the  Colonel  does  seem  to  be  on  his  high 
horse,  ma'am.  But  you  mustn't  ask  me  what  his 
business  with  Mr.  Corey  is,  for  I  don't  know.  All 
that  I  know  is  that  I  met  them  at  the  landing,  and 
that  they  conversed  all  the  way  down — on  literary 
topics." 

"Nonsense  !     What  do  you  think  it  is  1" 

"  Well,  if  you  want  my  candid  opinion,  I  think 
this  talk  about  business  is  nothing  but  a  blind.  It 
seems  a  pity  Irene  shouldn't  have  been  up  to  receive 
him,"  she  added. 

Irene  cast  a  mute  look  of  imploring  at  her  mother, 
who  was  too  much  preoccupied  to  afford  her  the 
protection  it  asked. 

"  Your  father  said  he  wanted  to  go  into  the  busi 
ness  with  him." 

Irene's  look  changed  to  a  stare  of  astonishment 
and  mystification,  but  Penelope  preserved  her  im 
perturbability. 

"  Well,  it 's  a  lucrative  business,  I  believe." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  121 

"  Well,  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it ! "  cried  Mrs. 
Lapham.  "  And  so  I  told  your  father." 

"  Did  it  seem  to  convince  him  1 "  inquired  Pene 
lope. 

Her  mother  did  not  reply.  "  I  know  one  thing,' 
she  said.  "  He 's  got  to  tell  me  every  word,  or 
there  '11  be  no  sleep  for  him  this  night." 

"  Well,  ma'am,"  said  Penelope,  breaking  down  in 
one  of  her  queer  laughs,  "  I  shouldn't  be  a  bit  sur 
prised  if  you  were  right." 

"  Go  on  and  dress,  Irene,"  ordered  her  mother, 
"  and  then  you  and  Pen  come  out  into  the  parlour. 
They  can  have  just  two  hours  for  business,  and 
then  we  must  all  be  there  to  receive  him.  You 
haven't  got  headache  enough  to  hurt  you." 

"  Oh,  it 's  all  gone  now,"  said  the  girL 

At  the  end  of  the  limit  she  had  given  the  Colonel, 
Mrs.  Lapham  looked  into  the  dining-room,  which 
she  found  blue  with  his  smoke. 

"  I  think  you  gentlemen  will  find  the  parlour 
pleasanter  now,  and  we  can  give  it  up  to  you." 

"  Oh  no,  you  needn't,"  said  her  husband. 
"  We  've  got  about  through."  Corey  was  already 
standing,  and  Lapham  rose  too.  "  I  guess  we  can 
join  the  ladies  now.  We  can  leave  that  little  point 
till  to-morrow." 

Both  of  the  young  ladies  were  in  the  parlour 
when  Corey  entered  with  their  father,  and  both 
were  frankly  indifferent  to  the  few  books  and  the 
many  newspapers  scattered  about  on  the  table 
where  the  large  lamp  was  placed.  But  after  Corey 


122  THE  RISE  OF 

had  greeted  Irene  he  glanced  at  the  novel  under  his 
eye,  and  said,  in  the  dearth  that  sometimes  befalls 
people  at  such  times :  "I  see  you  're  reading 
Middlemarch.  Do  you  like  George  Eliot  ? " 

"  Who  ? "  asked  the  girl. 

Penelope  interposed.  "  I  don't  believe  Irene 's 
read  it  yet.  I  've  just  got  it  out  of  the  library ;  I 
heard  so  much  talk  about  it.  I  wish  she  would  let 
you  find  out  a  little  about  the  people  for  yourself," 
she  added.'  But  here  her  father  struck  in — 

"  I  can't  get  the  time  for  books.  It 's  as  much  as 
I  can  do  to  keep  up  with  the  newspapers ;  and 
when  night  comes,  I  'm  tired,  and  I  'd  rather  go  out 
to  the  theatre,  or  a  lecture,  if  they  've  got  a  good 
stereopticon  to  give  you  views  of  the  places.  But 
I  guess  we  all  like  a  play  better  than  'most  anything 
else.  I  want  something  that  '11  make  me  laugh.  I 
don't  believe  in  tragedy.  I  think  there 's  enough  ot 
that  in  real  life  without  putting  it  on  the  stage. 
Seen  '  Joshua  Whitcomb '  1 " 

The  whole  family  joined  in  the  discussion,  and  it 
appeared  that  they  all  had  their  opinions  of  the 
plays  and  actors.  Mrs.  Lapham  brought  the  talk 
back  to  literature.  "  I  guess  Penelope  does  most  of 
our  reading." 

"  Now,  mother,  you  're  not  going  to  put  it  all  on 
me  ! "  said  the  girl,  in  comic  protest. 

Her  mother  laughed,  and  then  added,  with  a 
sigh :  "  I  used  to  like  to  get  hold  of  a  good  book 
when  I  was  a  girl ;  but  we  weren't  allowed  to  read 
many  novels  in  those  days.  My  mother  called 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  123 

them  all  lies.  And  I  guess  she  wasn't  so  very  far 
wrong  about  some  of  them." 

"  They  're  certainly  fictions,"  said  Corey,  smiling. 

"  Well,  we  do  buy  a  good  many  books,  first  and 
last,"  said  the  Colonel,  who  probably  had  in  mind 
the  costly  volumes  which  they  presented  to  one 
another  on  birthdays  and  holidays.  "  But  I  get 
about  all  the  reading  I  want  in  the  newspapers. 
And  when  the  girls  want  a  novel,  I  tell  'em  to  get 
it  out  of  the  library.  That 's  what  the  library 's  for. 
Phew  ! "  he  panted,  blowing  away  the  whole  unpro 
fitable  subject.  "  How  close  you  women-folks  like 
to  keep  a  room !  You  go  down  to  the  sea-side  or 
up  to  the  mountains  for  a  change  of  air,  and  then 
you  cork  yourselves  into  a  room  so  tight  you  don't 
have  any  air  at  all.  Here  !  You  girls  get  on  your 
bonnets,  and  go  and  show  Mr.  Corey  the  view  of  the 
hotels  from  the  rocks." 

Corey  said  that  he  should  be  delighted.  The 
girls  exchanged  looks  with  each  other,  and  then 
with  their  mother.  Irene  curved  her  pretty  chin  in 
comment  upon  her "  father's  incorrigibility,  and 
Penelope  made  a  droll  mouth,  but  the  Colonel 
remained  serenely  content  with  his  finesse.  "  I  got 
'em  out  of  the  way,"  he  said,  as  soon  as  they  were 
gone,  and  before  his  wife  had  time  to  fall  upon  him, 
"  because  I  've  got  through  my  talk  with  him,  and 
now  I  want  to  talk  with  you.  It 's  just  as  I  said, 
Persis ;  he  wants  to  go  into  the  business  with  me." 

"It's  lucky  for  you,"  said  his  wife,  meaning  that 
now  he  would  not  be  made  to  suffer  for  attempting 


124  THE  RISE  OF 

to  hoax  her.  But  she  was  too  intensely  interested 
to  pursue  that  matter  further.  "  What  in  the  world 
do  you  suppose  he  means  by  it  ? " 

"  Well,  I  should  judge  by  his  talk  that  he  had 
been  trying  a  good  many  different  things  since  he 
left  college,  and  he  hain't  found  just  the  thing  he 
likes — or  the  thing  that  likes  him.  It  ain't  so  easy. 
And  now  he 's  got  an  idea  that  he  can  take  hold  of 
the  paint  and  push  it  in  other  countries — Rush  it  in 
Mexico  and  push  it  in  South  America.  He 's  a 
splendid  Spanish  scholar," — this  was  Lapham's 
version  of  Corey's  modest  claim  to  a  smattering  of 
the  language, — "  and  he 's  been  among  the  natives 
enough  to  know  their  ways.  And  he  believes  in 
the  paint,"  added  the  Colonel. 

"  I  guess  he  believes  in  something  else  besides  the 
paint,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? " 

"  Well,  Silas  Lapham,  if  you  can't  see  now  that 
he's  after  Irene,  I  don't  know  what  ever  can  open 
your  eyes.  That 's  all." 

The  Colonel  pretended  to  giVe  the  idea  silent  con 
sideration,  as  if  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  before. 
"  Well,  then,  all  I  've  got  to  say  is,  that  he 's  going 
a  good  way  round.  I  don't  say  you  're  wrong,  but 
if  it  '&  Irene,  I  don't  see  why  he  should  want  to  go 
off  to  South  America  to  get  her.  And  that 's  what 
he  proposes  to  do.  I  guess  there  's  some  paint  about 
it  too,  Persis.  He  says  he  believes  in  it," — the 
Colonel  devoutly  lowered  his  voice, — "and  he's 
willing  to  take  the  agency  on  his  own  account  down 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  125 

there,  and  run  it  for  a  commission  on  what  he  can 
sell." 

"  Of  course !  He  isn't  going  to  take  hold  of  it 
any  way  so  as  to  feel  beholden  to  you.  He's  got 
too  much  pride  for  that." 

"  He  ain't  going  to  take  hold  of  it  at  all,  if  he 
don't  mean  paint  in  the  first  place  and  Irene  after 
ward.  I  don't  object  to  him,  as  I  know,  either  way, 
but  the  two  things  won't  mix ;  and  I  don't  propose 
he  shall  pull  the  wool  over  my  eyes — or  anybody 
else.  But,  as  far  as  heard  from,  up  to  date,  he 
means  paint  first,  last,  and  all  the  time.  At  any 
rate,  I  'm  going  to  take  him  on  that  basis.  He 's  got 
some  pretty  good  ideas  about  it,  and  he 's  been 
stirred  up  by  this  talk,  just  now,  about  getting  our 
manufactures  into  the  foreign  markets.  There 's  an 
overstock  in  everything,  and  we  've  got  to  get  rid  of 
it,  or  we  've  got  to  shut  down  till  the  home  demand 
begins  again.  We  've  had  two  or  three  such  flurries 
before  now,  and  they  didn't  amount  to  much.  They 
say  we  can't  extend  our  commerce  under  the  high 
tariff  system  we  Ve  got  now,  because  there  ain't  any 
sort  of  reciprocity  on  our  side, — we  want  to  have 
the  other  fellows  show  all  the  reciprocity, — and  the 
English  have  got  the  advantage  of  us  every  time.  I 
don't  know  whether  it 's  so  or  not ;  but  I  don't  see 
why  it  should  apply  to  my  paint.  Anyway,  he 
wants  to  try  it,  and  I  've  about  made  up  my  mind  to 
let  him.  Of  course  I  ain't  going  to  let  him  take  all 
the  risk.  I  believe  in  the  paint  too,  and  I  shall  pay 
his  expenses  anyway." 


126  THE  RISE  OF 

"  So  you  want  another  partner  after  all  ? "  Mrs. 
Lapham  could  not  forbear  saying. 

"  Yes,  if  that 's  your  idea  of  a  partner.  It  isn't 
mine,"  returned  her  husband  dryly. 

"  Well,  if  you  've  made  up  your  mind,  Si,  I  sup 
pose  you  're  ready  for  advice,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham. 

The  Colonel  enjoyed  this.  "  Yes,  I  am.  What 
have  you  got  to  say  against  it  1 " 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  've  got  anything.  I  'm  satis 
fied  if  you  are." 

"Well?" 

"  When  is  he  going  to  start  for  South  America  ? " 

"  I  shall  take  him  into  the  office  a  while.  He  '11 
get  off  some  time  in  the  winter.  But  he's  got  to 
know  the  business  first." 

"  Oh,  indeed !  Are  you  going  to  take  him  to 
board  in  the  family  ?  " 

"  What  are  you  after,  Persis  ?" 

"  Oh,  nothing !  I  presume  he  will  feel  free  to 
visit  in  the  family,  even  if  he  don't  board  with  us." 

"  I  presume  he  will" 

"  And  if  he  don't  use  his  privileges,  do  you  think 
he  '11  be  a  fit  person  to  manage  your  paint  in  South 
America  ? " 

The  Colonel  reddened  consciously.  "  I  'm  not 
taking  him  on  that  basis." 

"  Oh  yes,  you  are !  You  may  pretend  you  ain't 
to  yourself,  but  you  mustn't  pretend  so  to  me.  Be 
cause  I  know  you." 

The  Colonel  laughed.     "  Pshaw  ! "  he  said. 

Mrs.  Lapham  continued  :  "  I  don't  see  any  harm 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  127 

in  hoping  that  he  '11  take  a  fancy  to  her.  But  if  you 
really  think  it  won't  do  to  mix  the  two  things,  I 
advise  you  not  to  take  Mr.  Corey  into  the  business. 
It  will  do  all  very  well  if  he  does  take  a  fancy  to 
her;  but  if  he  don't,  you  know  how  you'll  feel 
about  it.  And  I  know  you  well  enough,  Silas,  to 
know  that  you  can't  do  him  justice  if  that  happens. 
And  I  don't  think  it's  right  you  should  take  this 
step  unless  you  're  pretty  sure.  I  can  see  that  you  Ve 
set  your  heart  on  this  thing " 

"  I  haven't  set  my  heart  on  it  at  all,"  protested 
Lapham. 

"  And  if  you  can't  bring  it  about,  you  're  going  to 
feel  unhappy  over  it,"  pursued  his  wife,  regardless 
of  his  protest. 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  he  said.  "  If  you  know  more 
about  what 's  in  my  mind  than  I  do,  there 's  no  use 
arguing,  as  I  can  see." 

He  got  up,  to  carry  off  his  consciousness,  and 
sauntered  out  of  the  door  on  to  his  piazza.  He 
could  see  the  young  people  down  on  the  rocks,  and 
his  heart  swelled  in  his  breast.  He  had  always  said 
that  he  did  not  care  what  a  man's  family  was,  but 
the  presence  of  young  Corey  as  an  applicant  to  him 
for  employment,  as  his  guest,  as  the  possible  suitor 
of  his  daughter,  was  one  of  the  sweetest  flavours 
that  he  had  yet  tasted  in  his  success.  He  knew  who 
the  Coreys  were  very  well,  and,  in  his  simple,  brutal 
way,  he  had  long  hated  their  name  as  a  symbol  of 
splendour  which,  unless  he  should  live  to  see  at 
least  three  generations  of  his  descendants  gilded 


128  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

with  mineral  paint,  he  could  not  hope  to  realise  in 
his  own.  He  was  acquainted  in  a  business  way  with 
the  tradition  of  old  Phillips  Corey,  and  he  had  heard 
a  great  many  things  about  the  Corey  who  had  spent 
his  youth  abroad  and  his  father's  money  everywhere, 
and  done  nothing  but  say  smart  things.  Lapham 
could  not  see  the  smartness  of  some  of  them  which 
had  been  repeated  to  him.  Once  he  had  encoun 
tered  the  fellow,  and  it  seemed  to  Lapham  that  the 
tall,  slim,  white-moustached  man,  with  the  slight 
stoop,  was  everything  that  was  offensively  aristo 
cratic.  He  had  bristled  up  aggressively  at  the 
name  when  his  wife  told  how  she  had  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  fellow's  family  the  summer 
before,  and  he  had  treated  the  notion  of  young 
Corey's  caring  for  Irene  with  the  contempt  which 
such  a  ridiculous  superstition  deserved.  He  had 
made  up  his  mind*  about  young  Corey  beforehand ; 
yet  when  he  met  him  he  felt  an  instant  liking  for 
him,  which  he  frankly  acknowledged,  and  he  had 
begun  to  assume  the  burden  of  his  wife's  supersti 
tion,  of  which  she  seemed  now  ready  to  accuse  him 
of  being  the  inventor. 

Nothing  had  moved  his  thick  imagination  like 
this  day's  events  since  the  girl  who  taught  him 
spelling  and  grammar  in  the  school  at  Lumberville 
had  said  she  would  have  him  for  her  husband 

The  dark  figures,  stationary  on  the  rocks,  began 
to  move,  and  he  could  see  that  they  were  coming 
toward  the  house.  He  went  indoors,  so  as  not  to 
appear  to  have  been  watching  them. 


VIII. 

A  WEEK  after  she  had  parted  with  her  son  at  Bar 
Harbour,  Mrs.  Corey  suddenly  walked  in  upon  her 
husband  in  their  house  in  Boston.  He  was  at  break 
fast,  and  he  gave  her  the  patronising  welcome  with 
which  the  husband  who  has  been  staying  in  town  all 
summer  receives  his  wife  when  she  drops  down  upon 
him  from  the  mountains  or  the  sea-side.  For  a  little 
moment  she  feels  herself  strange  in  the  house,  and 
suffers  herself  to  be  treated  like  a  guest,  before  envy 
of  his  comfort  vexes  her  back  into  possession  and 
authority.  Mrs.  Corey  was  a  lady,  and  she  did  not 
let  her  envy  take  the  form  of  open  reproach. 

"  Well,  Anna,  you  find  me  here  in  the  luxury  you 
left  me  to.  How  did  you  leave  the  girls  *? " 

"The  girls  were  well,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  looking 
absently  at  her  husband's  brown  velvet  coat,  in 
which  he  was  so  handsome.  No  man  had  ever 
grown  grey  more  beautifully.  His  hair,  while  not 
remaining  dark  enough  to  form  a  theatrical  contrast 
with  his  moustache,  was  yet  some  shades  darker, 
and,  in  becoming  a  little  thinner,  it  had  become  a 
little  more  gracefully  Avavy.  His  skin  had  the 
I 


130  THE  RISE  OF 

pearly  tint  which  that  of  elderly  men  sometimes 
assumes,  and  the  lines  which  time  had  traced  upon 
it  were  too  delicate  for  the  name  of  wrinkles.  He 
had  never  had  any  personal  vanity,  and  there  was 
no  consciousness  in  his  good  looks  now. 

"  I  am  glad  of  that.  The  boy  I  have  with  me," 
he  returned  ;  "  that  is,  when  he  is  with  me." 

"  Why,  where  is  he  1 "  demanded  the  mother. 

"  Probably  carousing  with  the  boon  Lapham  some 
where.  He  left  me  yesterday  afternoon  to  go  and 
offer  his  allegiance  to  the  Mineral  Paint  King,  and  I 
haven't  seen  him  since." 

"Bromfield!"  cried  Mrs.  Corey.  "Why  didn't 
you  stop  him  1 " 

"  Well,  my  dear,  I  'm  not  sure  that  it  isn't  a  very 
good  thing." 

"  A  good  thing  ?     It 's  horrid  ! " 

"No,  I  don't  think  so.  It's  decent.  Tom  had 
found  out — without  consulting  the  landscape,  which 
I  believe  proclaims  it  everywhere " 

"  Hideous ! " 

"That  it's  really  a  good  thing;  and  he  thinks 
that  he  has  some  ideas  in  regard  to  its  dissemina 
tion  in  the  parts  beyond  seas." 

"Why  shouldn't  he  go  into  something  else?" 
lamented  the  mother. 

"  I  believe  he  has  gone  into  nearly  everything  else 
and  come  out  of  it.  So  there  is  a  chance  of  his 
coming  out  of  this.  But  as  I  had  nothing  to 
suggest  in  place  of  it,  I  thought  it  best  not  to 
interfere.  In  fact,  what  good  would  my  telling 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  .      131 

him  that  mineral  paint  was  nasty  have  done  1  I 
dare  say  you  told  him  it  was  nasty." 

"Yesl"  I  did." 

"  And  you  see  with  what  effect,  though  he  values 
your  opinion  three  times  as  much  as  he  values  mine. 
Perhaps  you  came  up  to  tell  him  again  that  it  was 
nasty  1 " 

"  I  feel  very  unhappy  about  it.  He  is  throwing 
himself  away.  Yes,  I  should  like  to  prevent  it  if  I 
could ! " 

The  father  shook  his  head. 

"  If  Lapham  hasn't  prevented  it,  I  fancy  it 's  too 
late.  But  there  may  be  some  hopes  of  Lapham. 
As  for  Tom's  throwing  himself  away,  I  don't  know. 
There 's  no  question  but  he  is  one  of  the  best  fellows 
under  the  sun.  He's  tremendously  energetic,  and 
he  has  plenty  of  the  kind  of  sense  which  we  call 
horse;  but  he  isn't  brilliant.  No,  Tom  is  not 
brilliant.  I  don't  think  he  would  get  on  in  a 
profession,  and  he  's  instinctively  kept  out  of  every 
thing  of  the  kind.  But  he  has  got  to  do  something. 
What  shall  he  do?  He  says  mineral  paint,  and 
really  I  don't  see  why  he  shouldn't.  If  money  is 
fairly  and  honestly  earned,  why  should  we  pretend 
to  care  what  it  comes  out  of,  when  we  don't  really 
care  ?  That  superstition  is  exploded  everywhere." 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  the  paint  alone,"  said  Mrs.  Corey ; 
and  then  she  perceptibly  arrested  herself,  and  made 
a  diversion  in  continuing:  "I  wish  he  had  married 
some  one." 

"  With  money  ? "  suggested  her  husband.     "  From 


132  THE  RISE  OF 

time  to  time  I  have  attempted  Tom's  corruption  from 
that  side,  but  I  suspect  Tom  has  a  conscience  against 
it,  and  I  rather  like  him  for  it.  I  married  for  love 
myself,"  said  Corey,  looking  across  the  table  at  his 
wife. 

She  returned  his  look  tolerantly,  though  she  felt 
it  right  to  say,  "  What  nonsense  !" 

"  Besides,"  continued  her  husband,  "  if  you  come 
to  money,  there  is  the  paint  princess.  She  will  have 
plenty." 

"  Ah,  that 's  the  worst  of  it,"  sighed  the  mother. 
"I  suppose  I  could  get  on  with  the  paint " 

"  But  not  with  the  princess  ?  I  thought  you  said 
she  was  a  very  pretty,  well-behaved  girl  ?" 

"She'is  very  pretty,  and  she  is  well-behaved  ;  but 
there  is  nothing  of  her.  She  is  insipid ;  she  is  very 
insipid." 

"  But  Tom  seemed  to  like  her  flavour,  such  as  it 
was?" 

"  How  can  I  tell  ?  "We  were  under  a  terrible  obli 
gation  to  them,  and  I  naturally  wished  him  to  be 
polite  to  them.  In  fact,  I  asked  him  to  be  so." 

"  And  he  was  too  polite   ' 

"  I  can't  say  that  he  was.  But  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  child  is  extremely  pretty." 

"  Tom  says  there  are  two  of  them.  Perhaps  they 
will  neutralise  each  other." 

"  Yes,  there  is  another  daughter,"  assented  Mrs. 
Corey.  "  I  don't  see  how  you  can  joke  about  such 
things,  Bromfield,"  she  added. 

"  Well,  I  don't  either,  my  dear,  to  tell  you  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  133 

truth.  My  hardihood  surprises  me.  Here  is  a  son  of 
mine  whom  I  see  reduced  to  making  his  living  by  a 
shrinkage  in  values.  It 's  very  odd,"  interjected 
Corey,  "  that  some  values  should  have  this  peculiarity 
of  shrinking.  You  never  hear  of  values  in  a  picture 
shrinking ;  but  rents,  stocks,  real  estate — all  those 
values  shrink  abominably.  Perhaps  it  might  be 
argued  that  one  should  put  all  his  values  into  pic 
tures  ;  I  Ve  got  a  good  many  of  mine  there." 

"  Tom  needn't  earn  his  living,"  said  Mrs.  Corey, 
refusing  her  husband's  jest.  "  There 's  still  enough 
for  all  of  us." 

"  That  is  what  I  have  sometimes  urged  upon  Tom. 
I  have  proved  to  him  that  with  economy,  and  strict 
attention  to  business,  he  need  do  nothing  as  long  as 
he  lives.  Of  course  he  would  be  somewhat  restricted, 
and  it  would  cramp  the  rest  of  us ;  but  it  is  a  world 
of  sacrifices  and  compromises.  He  couldn't  agree 
with  me,  and  he  was  not  in  the  least  moved  by  the 
example  of  persons  of  quality  in  Europe,  which  I 
alleged  in  support  of  the  life  of  idleness.  It  appears 
that  he  wishes  to  do  something — to  do  something 
for  himself.  I  am  afraid  that  Tom  is  selfish." 

Mrs.  Corey  smiled  wanly.  Thirty  years  before, 
she  had  married  the  rich  young  painter  in  Rome, 
who  said  so  much  better  things  than  he  painted — 
charming  things,  just  the  things  to  please  the  fancy 
of  a  girl  who  was  disposed  to  take  life  a  little 
too  seriously  and  practically.  She  saw  him  in  a 
different  light  when  she  got  him  home  to  Boston ; 
but  he  had  kept  on  saying  the  charming  things,  and 


134  THE  RISE  OF 

he  had  not  done  much  else.  In  fact,  he  had  fulfilled 
the  promise  of  his  youth.  It  was  a  good  trait  in 
him  that  he  was  not  actively  but  only  passively 
extravagant.  He  was  not  adventurous  with  his 
money ;  his  tastes  were  as  simple  as  an  Italian's  ;  he 
had  no  expensive  habits.  In  the  process  of  time  he 
had  grown  to  lead  a  more  and  more  secluded  life. 
It  was  hard  to  get  him  out  anywhere,  even  to  dinner. 
His  patience  with  their  narrowing  circumstances  had 
a  pathos  which  she  felt  the  more  the  more  she  came 
into  charge  of  their  joint  life.  At  times  it  seemed 
too  bad  that  the  children  and  their  education  and 
pleasures  should  cost  so  much.  She  knew,  besides, 
that  if  it  had  not  been  for  them  she  would  have 
gone  back  to  Rome  with  him,  and  lived  princely  there 
for  less  than  it  took  to  live  respectably  in  Boston. 

"  Tom  hasn't  consulted  me,"  continued  his  father, 
"  but  he  has  consulted  other  people.  And  he  has 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  mineral  paint  is  a  good 
thing  to  go  into.  He  has  found  out  all  about  it,  and 
about  its  founder  or  inventor.  It 's  quite  impressive 
to  hear  him  talk.  And  if  he  must  do  something  for 
himself,  I  don't  see  why  his  egotism  shouldn't  as 
well  take  that  form  as  another.  Combined  with  the 
paint  princess,  it  isn't  so  agreeable  ;  but  that 's  only 
a  remote  possibility,  for  which  your  principal  ground 
is  your  motherly  solicitude.  But  even  if  it  were 
probable  and  imminent,  what  could  you  do  ?  The 
chief  consolation  that  we  American  parents  have  in 
these  matters  is  that  we  can  do  nothing.  If  we  were 
Europeans,  even  English,  we  should  take  some  cog- 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  135 

nisance  of  our  children's  love  affairs,  and  in  some 
measure  teach  their  young  affections  how  to  shoot. 
But  it  is  our  custom  to  ignore  them  until  they  have 
shot,  and  then  they  ignore  us.  We  are  altogether  too 
delicate  to  arrange  the  marriages  of  our  children ;  and 
when  they  have  arranged  them  we  don't  like  to  say 
anything,  for  fear  we  should  only  make  bad  worse. 
The  right  way  is  for  us  to  school  ourselves  to  indif 
ference.  That  is  what  the  young  people  have  to  do 
elsewhere,  and  that  is  the  only  logical  result  of  our 
position  here.  It  is  absurd  for  us  to  have  any  feel 
ing  about  what  we  don't  interfere  with." 

"  Oh,  people  do  interfere  with  their  children's 
marriages  very  often,"  said  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  Yes,  but  only  in  a  half-hearted  way,  so  as  not  to 
make  it  disagreeable  for  themselves  if  the  marriages 
go  on  in  spite  of  them,  as  they  're  pretty  apt  to  do. 
Now,  my  idea  is  that  I  ought  to  cut  Tom  off  with  a 
shilling.  That  would  be  very  simple,  and  it  would 
be  economical.  But  you  would  never  consent,  and 
Tom  wouldn't  mind  it." 

"I  think  our  whole  conduct  in  regard  to  such 
things  is  wrong,"  said  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  Oh,  very  likely.  But  our  whole  civilisation  is 
based  upon  it.  And  who  is  going  to  make  a  begin 
ning  1  To  which  father  in  our  acquaintance  shall  I 
go  and  propose  an  alliance  for  Tom  with  his  daughter  1 
I  should  feel  like  an  ass.  And  will  you  go  to  some 
mother,  and  ask  her  sons  in  marriage  for  our  daugh 
ters  1  You  would  feel  like  a  goose.  No ;  the  only 
motto  for  us  is,  Hands  off  altogether." 


136  THE  RISE  OF 

"I  shall  certainly  speak  to  Tom  when  the  time 
comes,"  said  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  And  I  shall  ask  leave  to  be  absent  from  your 
discomfiture,  my  dear,"  answered  her  husband. 

The  son  returned  that  afternoon,  -and  confessed 
his  surprise  at  finding  his  mother  in  Boston.  He 
was  so  frank  that  she  had  not  quite  the  courage  to 
confess  in  turn  why  she  had  come,  but  trumped  up 
an  excuse. 

"  Well,  mother,"  he  said  promptly,  "  I  have  made 
an  engagement  with  Mr.  Lapham." 

"  Have  you,  Tom  ?"  she  asked  faintly. 

"  Yes.  For  the  present  I  am  going  to  have  charge 
of  his  foreign  correspondence,  and  if  I  see  my  way 
to  the  advantage  I  expect  to  find  in  it,  I  am  going 
out  to  manage  that  side  of  his  business  in  South 
America  and  Mexico.  He 's  behaved  very  hand 
somely  about  it.  He  says  that  if  it  appears  for  our 
common  interest,  he  shall  pay  me  a  salary  as  well 
as  a  commission.  I  Ve  talked  with  Uncle  Jim,  and 
he  thinks  it's  a  good  opening." 

"  Your  Uncle  Jim  does  ? "  queried  Mrs.  Corey  in 
amaze. 

"  Yes ;  I  consulted  him  the  whole  way  through, 
and  I  Ve  acted  on  his  advice. " 

This  seemed  an  incomprehensible  treachery  on 
her  brother's  part. 

"  Yes ;  I  thought  you  would  like  to  have  me. 
And  besides,  I  couldn't  possibly  have  gone  to  any 
one  so  well  fitted  to  advise  me." 

His  mother  said  nothing.     In  fact,  the  mineral 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  137 

paint  business,  however  painful  its  interest,  was, 
for  the  moment,  superseded  by  a  more  poignant 
anxiety.  She  began  to  feel  her  way  cautiously 
toward  this. 

"  Plave  you  been  talking  about  your  business 
with  Mr.  Lapham  all  night  1" 

"  Well,  pretty  much,"  said  her  son,  with  a  guilt 
less  laugh.  "  I  went  to  see  him  yesterday  afternoon, 
after  I  had  gone  over  the  whole  ground  with  Uncle 
Jim,  and  Mr.  Lapham  asked  me  to  go  down  with 
him  and  finish  up." 

"Down?"  repeated  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  Yes,  to  Nantasket.  He  has  a  cottage  down 
there." 

"  At  Nantasket  1 "  Mrs.  Corey  knitted  her  brows 
a  little.  "  What  in  the  world  can  a  cottage  at 
Nantasket  be  like  1 " 

"  Oh,  very  much  like  a  '  cottage '  anywhere.  It 
has  the  usual  allowance  of  red  roof  and  veranda. 
There  are  the  regulation  rocks  by  the  sea ;  and  the 
big  hotels  on  the  beach  about  a  mile  off,  flaring  away 
with  electric  lights  and  roman- candles  at  night.  We 
didn't  have  them  at  Nahant." 

"  No,"  said  his  mother.  "  Is  Mrs.  Lapham  well  1 
And  her  daughter  ] " 

"  Yes,  I  think  so,"  said  the  young  man.  "  The 
young  ladies  walked  me  down  to  the  rocks  in  the 
usual  way  after  dinner,  and  then  I  came  back  and 
talked  paint  with  Mr.  Lapham  till  midnight.  We 
didn't  settle  anything  till  this  morning  coming  up 
on  the  boat." 


138  THE  RISE  OF 

"  What  sort  of  people  do  they  seem  to  be  at 
home  J" 

"What  sort?  Well,  I  don't  know  that  I 
noticed."  Mrs.  Corey  permitted  herself  the  first 
part  of  a  sigh  of  relief;  and  her  son  laughed,  but 
apparently  not  at  her.  "  They  're  just  reading 
Middlemarch.  They  say  there's  so  much  talk 
about  it.  Oh,  I  suppose  they  're  very  good  people. 
They  seemed  to  be  on  very  good  terms  with  each 
other." 

"  I  suppose  it 's  the  plain  sister  who 's  reading 
Middlemarch" 

"Plaint  Is  she  plain?"  asked  the  young  man, 
as  if  searching  his  consciousness.  "  Yes,  k  's  the 
older  one  who  does  the  reading,  apparently.  But  I 
don't  believe  that  even  she  overdoes  it.  They  like 
to  talk  better.  They  reminded  me  of  Southern 
people  in  that."  The  young  man  smiled,  as  if 
amused  by  some  of  his  impressions  of  the  Lapham 
family.  "  The  living,  as  the  country  people  call  it, 
is  tremendously  good.  The  Colonel — he 's  a  colonel 
— talked  of  the  coffee  as  his  wife's  coffee,  as  if  she 
had  personally  made  it  in  the  kitchen,  though  I 
believe  it  was  merely  inspired  by  her.  And  there 
was  everything  in  the  house  that  money  could  buy. 
But  money  has  its  limitations." 

This  was  a  fact  which  Mrs.  Corey  was  beginning 
to  realise  more  and  more  unpleasantly  in  her  own 
life ;  but  it  seemed  to  bring  her  a  certain  comfort 
in  its  appli cation  to  the  Laphams.  "  Yes,  there  is  a 
point  where  taste  has  to  begin,"  she  said. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  139 

"  They  seemed  to  want  to  apologise  to  me  for  not 
having  more  books,"  said  Corey.  "  I  don't  know 
why  they  should.  The  Colonel  said  they  bought  a 
good  many  books,  first  and  last ;  but  apparently 
they  don't  take  them  to  the  sea- side." 

"  I  dare  say  they  never  buy  a  new  book.  I  Ve  met 
some  of  these  moneyed  people  lately,  and  they 
lavish  on  every  conceivable  luxury,  and  then  borrow 
books,  and  get  them  in  the  cheap  paper  editions." 

"  I  fancy  that 's  the  way  with  the  Lapham 
family,"  said  the  young  man,  smilingly.  "But 
they  are  very  good  people.  The  other  daughter  is 
humorous." 

"  Humorous  1"  Mrs.  Corey  knitted  her  brows  in 
some  perplexity.  "  Do  you  mean  like  Mrs.  Sayre  V 
she  asked,  naming  the  lady  whose  name  must 
come  into  every  Boston  mind  when  humour  is 
mentioned. 

"  Oh  no ;  nothing  like  that.  She  never  says 
anything  that  you  can  remember;  nothing  in  flashes 
or  ripples ;  nothing  the  least  literary.  But  it 's  a 
sort  of  droll  way  of  looking  at  things;  or  a  droll 
medium  through  which  things  present  themselves. 
I  don't  know.  She  tells  what  she;s  seen,  and 
mimics  a  little." 

"  Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Corey  coldly.  After  a  moment 
she  asked :  "  And  is  Miss  Irene  as  pretty  as  ever  ? " 

"  She 's  a  wonderful  complexion,"  said  the  son 
unsatisfactorily.  "  I  shall  want  to  be  by  when 
father  and  Colonel  Lapham  meet,"  he  added,  with  a 
smile. 


140  THE  RISE  OF 

"Ah,  yes,  your  father  !"  said  the  mother,  in  that 
way  in  which  a  wife  at  once  compassionates  and 
censures  her  husband  to  their  children. 

"  Do  you  think  it 's  really  going  to  be  a  trial  to 
him  ? "  asked  the  young  man  quickly. 

"  No,  no,  I  can't  say  it  is.  But  I  confess  I  wish 
it  was  some  other  business,  Tom." 

"Well,  mother,  I  don't  see  why.  The  principal 
thing  looked  at  now  is  the  amount  of  money ;  and 
while  I  would  rather  starve  than  touch  a  dollar  that 
was  dirty  with  any  sort  of  dishonesty " 

"  Of  course  you  would,  my  son  !"  interposed  his 
mother  proudly. 

"I  shouldn't  at  all  mind  its  having  a  little 
mineral  paint  on  it.  I'll  use  my  influence  with 
Colonel  Lapham — if  I  ever  have  any — to  have  his 
paint  scraped  off  the  landscape." 

"  I  suppose  you  won't  begin  till  the  autumn." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  shall,"  said  the  son,  laughing  at  his 
mother's  simple  ignorance  of  business.  "  I  shall 
begin  to-morrow  morning." 

"  To-morrow  morning !" 

"  Yes.  I  've  had  my  desk  appointed  already,  and 
I  shall  be  down  there  at  nine  in  the  morning  to  take 
possession." 

"  Tom  "  cried  his  mother,  "  why  do  you  think 
Mr.  Lapham  has  taken  you  into  business  so  readily  ? 
I  Ve  always  heard  that  it  was  so  hard  for  young 
men  to  get  in." 

"  And  do  you  think  I  found  it  easy  with  him  1 
We  had  about  twelve  hours'  solid  talk." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  141 

"  And  you  don't  suppose  it  was  any  sort  of — per 
sonal  consideration  ?" 

"  Why,  I  don't  know  exactly  what  you  mean, 
mother.  I  suppose  he  likes  me." 

Mrs.  Coi'ey  could  not  say  just  what  she  meant. 
She  answered,  ineffectually  enough — 

"  Yes.  You  wouldn't  like  it  to  be  a  favour, 
would  you  1" 

"  I  think  he 's  a  man  who  may  be  trusted  to  look 
after  his  own  interest.  But  I  don't  mind  his  begin 
ning  by  liking  me.  It  '11  be  my  own  fault  if  I  don't 
make  myself  essential  to  him." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  Well,  demanded  her  husband,  at  their  first 
meeting  after  her  interview  with  their  son,  "  what 
did  you  say  to  Tom  ?" 

"  Very  little,  if  anything.  I  found  him  with  his 
mind  made  up,  and  it  would  only  have  distressed 
him  if  I  had  tried  to  change  it." 

"  That  is  precisely  what  I  said,  my  dear." 

"Besides,  he  had  talked  the  matter  over  fully 
with  James,  and  seems  to  have  been  advised  by 
him.  I  can't  understand  James." 

"  Oh !  it 's  in  regard  to  the  paint,  and  not  the 
princess,  that  he's  made  up  his  mind.  Well,  I 
think  you  were  wise  to  let  him  alone,  Anna.  We 
represent  a  faded  tradition.  We  don't  really  care 
what  business  a  man  is  in,  so  it  is  large  enough,  and 
he  doesn't  advertise  offensively;  but  we  think  it  fine 
to  affect  reluctance." 


142  THE  RISE  OF 

"Do  you  really  feel  so,  Bromfield  ?"  asked  his 
wife  seriously. 

"  Certainly  I  do.  There  was  a  long  time  in  my 
misguided  youth  when  I  supposed  myself  some  sort 
of  porcelain  ;  but  it 's  a  relief  to  be  of  the  common 
clay,  after  all,  and  to  know  it.  If  I  get  broken,  I 
can  be  easily  replaced." 

"  If  Tom  must  go  into  such  a  business,"  said  Mrs. 
Corey,  "  I  'm  glad  James  approves  of  it." 

"  I  'm  afraid  it  wouldn't  matter  to  Tom  if  he 
didn't ;  and  I  don't  know  that  I  should  care,"  said 
Corey,  betraying  the  fact  that  he  had  perhaps  had  a 
good  deal  of  his  brother-in-law's  judgment  in  the 
course  of  his  life.  "  You  had  better  consult  him  in 
regard  to  Tom's  marrying  the  princess." 

"  There  is  no  necessity  at  present  for  that,"  said 
Mrs.  Corey,  with  dignity.  After  a  moment,  she 
asked,  "  Should  you  feel  quite  so  easy  if  it  were  a 
question  of  that,  Bromfield  ? " 

"  It  would  be  a  little  more  personal." 

"  You  feel  about  it  as  I  do.  Of  course,  we  have 
both  lived  too  long,  and  seen  too  much  of  the  world, 
to  suppose  we  can  control  such  things.  The  child 
is  good,  I  haven't  the  least  doubt,  and  all  those 
things  can  be  managed  so  that  they  wouldn't  dis 
grace  us.  But  she  has  had  a  certain  sort  of  bringing 
up.  I  should  prefer  Tom  to  marry  a  girl  with 
another  sort,  and  this  business  venture  of  his 
increases  the  chances  that  he  won't.  That 's  all." 

"  '  'Tis  not  so  deep  as  *a  well,  nor  so  wide  as  a 
church  door,  but  'twill  serve.' " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  143 

"  I  shouldn't  like  it." 

"  Well,  it  hasn't  happened  yet." 

"Ah,  you  never  can  realise  anything  beforehand." 

"  Perhaps  that  has  saved  me  some  suffering.  But 
you  have  at  least  the  consolation  of  two  anxieties  at 
once.  I  always  find  that  a  great  advantage.  You 
can  play  one  off  against  the  other." 

Mrs.  Corey  drew  a  long  breath  as  if  she  did 
not  experience  the  suggested  consolation ;  and  she 
arranged  to  quit,  the  following  afternoon,  the  scene 
of  her  defeat,  which  she  had  not  had  the  courage 
to  make  a  battlefield.  Her  son  went  down  to  see 
her  off  on  the  boat,  after  spending  his  first  day  at 
his  desk  in  Lapham's  office.  He  was  in  a  gay 
humour,  and  she  departed  in  a  reflected  gleam  of 
his  good  spirits.  He  told  her  all  about  it,  as  he  sat 
talking  with  her  at  the  stern  of  the  boat,  lingering 
till  the  last  moment,  and  then  stepping  ashore,  with 
as  little  waste  of  time  as  Lapham  himself,  on  the 
gang-plank  which  the  deck-hands  had  laid  hold 
of.  He  touched  his  hat  to  her  from  the  wharf  to 
reassure  her  of  his  escape  from  being  carried  away 
with  her,  and  the  next  moment  his  smiling  face  hid 
itself  in  the  crowd. 

He  walked  on  smiling  up  the  long  wharf,  encum 
bered  with  trucks  and  hacks  and  piles  of  freight, 
and,  taking  his  way  through  the  deserted  business 
streets  beyond  this  bustle,  made  a  point  of  passing 
the  door  of  Lapham's  warehouse,  on  the  jambs  of 
which  his  name  and  paint  were  lettered  in  black  on 
a  square  ground  of  white.  The  door  was  still  open, 


144  THE  RISE  OF 

and  Corey  loitered  a  moment  before  it,  tempted  to 
go  upstairs  and  fetch  away  some  foreign  letters 
which  he  had  left  on  his  desk,  and  which  he  thought 
he  might  finish  up  at  home.  He  was  in  love  with 
his  work,  and  he  felt  the  enthusiasm  for  it  which 
nothing  but  the  work  we  can  do  well  inspires  in  us. 
He  believed  that  he  had  found  his  place  in  the 
world,  after  a  good  deal  of  looking,  and  he  had  the 
relief,  the  repose,  of  fitting  into  it.  Every  little 
incident  of  the  momentous,  uneventful  day  was  a 
pleasure  in  his  mind,  from  his  sitting  down  at  his 
desk,  to  which  Lapham's  boy  brought  him  the 
foreign  letters,  till  his  rising  from  it  an  hour  ago. 
Lapham  had  been  in  view  within  his  own  office,  but 
he  had  given  Corey  no  formal  reception,  and  had,  in 
fact,  not  spoken  to  him  till  toward  the  end  of  the 
forenoon,  when  he  suddenly  came  out  of  his  den 
with  some  more  letters  in  his  hand,  and  after  a  brief 
"  How  d'  ye  do  1 "  had  spoken  a  few  words  about 
them,  and  left  them  with  him.  He  was  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  again,  and  his  sanguine  person  seemed  to 
radiate  the  heat  with  which  he  suffered.  He  did 
not  go  out  to  lunch,  but  had  it  brought  to  him  in 
his  office,  where  Corey  saw  him  eating  it  before  he 
left  his  own  desk  to  go  out  and  perch  on  a  swinging 
seat  before  the  long  counter  of  a  down-town  restaur 
ant.  He  observed  that  all  the  others  lunched  at 
twelve,  and  he  resolved  to  anticipate  his  usual  hour. 
When  he  returned,  the  pretty  girl  who  had  been 
clicking  away  at  a  type-writer  all  the  morning  was 
neatly  putting  out  of  sight  the  evidences  of  pie  from 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  145 

the  table  where  her  machine  stood,  and  was  prepar 
ing  to  go  on  with  her  copying.  In  his  office  Lapham 
lay  asleep  in  his  arm-chair,  with  a  newspaper  over 
his  face. 

Now,  while  Corey  lingered  at  the  entrance  to  the 
stairway,  these  two  came  down  the  stairs  together, 
and  he  heard  Lapham  saying,  "Well,  then,  you 
better  get  a  divorce." 

He  looked  red  and  excited,  and  the  girl's  face, 
which  she  veiled  at  sight  of  Corey,  showed  traces 
of  tears.  She  slipped  round  him  into  the  street. 

But  Lapham  stopped,  and  said,  with  the  show 
of  no  feeling  but  surprise :  "  Hello,  Corey !  Did 
you  want  to  go  up  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  there  were  some  letters  I  hadn't  quite  got 
through  with." 

"  You  '11  find  Dennis  up  there.  But  I  guess  you 
better  let  them  go  till  to-morrow.  I  always  make  it 
a  rule  to  stop  work  when  I  'm  done." 

"  Perhaps  you  're  right,"  said  Corey,  yielding. 

"  Come  along  down  as  far  as  the  boat  with  me. 
There 's  a  little  matter  I  want  to  talk  over  with 
you." 

It  was  a  business  matter,  and  related  to  Corey's 
proposed  connection  with  the  house. 

The  next  day  the  head  book-keeper,  who  lunched 
at  the  long  counter  of  the  same  restaurant  with 
Corey,  began  to  talk  with  him  about  Lapham. 
Walker  had  not  apparently  got  his  place  by  seni 
ority  ;  though  with  his  forehead,  bald  far  up  toward 
the  crown,  and  his  round  smooth  face,  one  might 
K 


146  THE  RISE  OF 

have  taken  him  for  a  plump  elder,  if  he  had  not 
looked  equally  like  a  robust  infant.  The  thick 
drabbish-yellow  moustache  was  what  arrested  de 
cision  in  either  direction,  and  the  prompt  vigour  of 
all  his  movements  was  that  of  a  young  man  of  thirty, 
which  was  really  Walker's  age.  He  knew,  of  course, 
who  Corey  was,  and  he  had  waited  for  a  man  who 
might  look  down  on  him  socially  to  make  the  over 
tures  toward  something  more  than  business  acquaint 
ance  ;  but,  these  made,  he  was  readily  responsive, 
and  drew  freely  on  his  philosophy  of  Lapham  and 
his  affairs. 

"  I  think  about  the  only  difference  between  people 
in  this  world  is  that  some  know  what  they  want, 
and  some  don't.  Well,  now,"  said  Walker,  beating 
the  bottom  of  his  salt-box  to  make  the  salt  come 
out,  "  the  old  man  knows  what  he  wants  every  time. 
And  generally  he  gets  it.  Yes,  sir,  he  generally 
gets  it.  He  knows  what  he 's  about,  but  I  '11  be 
blessed  if  the  rest  of  us  do  half  the  time.  Any 
way,  we  don't  till  he 's  ready  to  let  us.  You  take 
my  position  in  most  business  houses.  It's  confi 
dential.  The  head  book-keeper  knows  right  along 
pretty  much  everything  the  house  has  got  in  hand. 
I  '11  give  you  my  word  I  don't.  He  may  open  up 
to  you  a  little  more  in  your  department,  but,  as  far 
as  the  rest  of  us  go,  he  don't  open  up  any  more  than 
an  oyster  on  a  hot  brick.  They  say  he  had  a  partner 
once ;  I  guess  he 's  dead.  /  wouldn't  like  to  be  the 
old  man's  partner.  Well,  you  see,  this  paint  of  his 
is  like  his  heart's  blood.  Better  not  try  to  joke  him 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  147 

about  it.  I  Ve  seen  people  come  in  occasionally  and 
try  it.  They  didn't  get  much  fun  out  of  it." 

While  he  talked,  Walker  was  plucking  up  morsels 
from  his  plate,  tearing  off  pieces  of  French  bread 
from  the  long  loaf,  and  feeding  them  into  his  mouth 
in  an  impersonal  way,  as  if  he  were  firing  up  an 
engine. 

"  I  suppose  he  thinks,"  suggested  Corey,  "  that  if 
he  doesn't  tell,  nobody  else  will." 

Walker  took  a  draught  of  beer  from  his  glass,  and 
wiped  the  foam  from  his  moustache. 

"  Oh,  but  he  carries  it  too  far  !  It 's  a  weakness 
with  him.  He's  just  so  about  everything.  Look 
at  the  way  he  keeps  it  up  about  that  type-writer 
girl  of  his.  You'd  think  she  was  some  princess 
travelling  incognito.  There  isn't  one  of  us  knows 
who  she  is,  or  where  she  came  from,  or  who  she 
belongs  to.  He  brought  her  and  her  machine  into 
the  office  one  morning,  and  set  'em  down  at  a  table, 
and  that's  all  there  is  about  it,  as  far  as  we're 
concerned.  It 's  pretty  hard  on  the  girl,  for  I  guess 
she  'd  like  to  talk ;  and  to  any  one  that  didn't  know 

the  old  man "  Walker  broke  off  and  drained 

his  glass  of  what  was  left  in  it. 

Corey  thought  of  the  words  he  had  overheard 
from  Lapham  to  the  girl.  But  he  said,  "  She  seems 
to  be  kept  pretty  busy." 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Walker;  "there  ain't  much 
loafing  round  the  place,  in  any  of  the  departments, 
from  the  old  man's  down.  That 's  just  what  I  say. 
He 's  got  to  work  just  twice  as  hard,  if  he  wants  to 


148  THE  RISE  OF 

keep  everything  in  his  own  mind.  But  he  ain't 
afraid  of  work.  That 's  one  good  thing  about  him. 
And  Miss  Dewey  has  to  keep  step  with  the  rest  of 
us.  But  she  don't  look  like  one  that  would  take 
to  it  naturally.  Such  a  pretty  girl  as  that  gener 
ally  thinks  she  does  enough  when  she  looks  her 
prettiest." 

"She's  a  pretty  girl,"  said  Corey,  non-commit- 
tally.  "But  I  suppose  a  great  many  pretty  girls 
have  to  earn  their  living." 

"Don't  any  of  'em  like  to  do  it,"  returned  the 
book-keeper.  "  They  think  it 's  a  hardship,  and  I 
don't  blame  'em.  They  have  got  a  right  to  get 
married,  and  they  ought  to  have  the  chance.  And 
Miss  Dewey 's  smart,  too.  She 's  as  bright  as  a 
biscuit.  I  guess  she 's  had  trouble.  I  shouldn't 
be  much  more  than  half  surprised  if  Miss  Dewey 
wasn't  Miss  Dewey,  or  hadn't  always  been.  Yes, 
sir,"  continued  the  book-keeper,  who  prolonged  the 
talk  as  they  walked  back  to  Lapham's  warehouse 
together,  "I  don't  know  exactly  what  it  is, — it 
isn't  any  one  thing  in  particular, — but  I  should  say 
that  girl  had  been  married.  I  wouldn't  speak  so 
freely  to  any  of  the  rest,  Mr.  Corey, — I  want  you 
to  understand  that, — and  it  isn't  any  of  my  busi 
ness,  anyway;  but  that's  my  opinion." 

Corey  made  no  reply,  as  he  walked  beside  the 
book-keeper,  who  continued — 

"  It 's  curious  what  a  difference  marriage  makes  in 
people.  Now,  I  know  that  I  don't  look  any  more 
like  a  bachelor  of  my  age  than  I  do  like  the  man 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  149 

in  the  moon,  and  yet  I  couldn't  say  where  the 
difference  came  in,  to  save  me.  And  it's  just  so 
with  a  woman.  The  minute  you  catch  sight  of 
her  face,  there 's  something  in  it  that  tells  you 
whether  she 's  married  or  not.  What  do  you 
suppose  it  is  ?  " 

"  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know,"  said  Corey,  willing  to 
laugh  away  the  topic.  "And  from  what  I  read 
occasionally  of  some  people  who  go  about  repeating 
their  happiness,  I  shouldn't  say  that  the  intangible 
evidences  were  always  unmistakable." 

"Oh,  of  course,"  admitted  Walker,  easily  sur 
rendering  his  position.  "  All  signs  fail  in  dry 
weather.  Hello!  What's  that?"  He  caught  Corey 
by  the  arm,  and  they  both  stopped. 

At  a  corner,  half  a  block  ahead  of  them,  the 
summer  noon  solitude  of  the  place  was  broken  by  a 
bit  of  drama.  A  man  and  woman  issued  from  the 
intersecting  street,  and  at  the  moment  of  coming  into 
sight  the  man,  who  looked  like  a  sailor,  caught  the 
woman  by  the  arm,  as  if  to  detain  her.  A  brief 
struggle  ensued,  the  woman  trying  to  free  herself, 
and  the  man  half  coaxing,  half  scolding.  The  spec 
tators  could  now  see  that  he  was  drunk  ;  but  before 
they  could  decide  whether  it  was  a  case  for  their 
interference  or  not,  the  woman  suddenly  set  both 
hands  against  the  man's  breast  and  gave  him  a  quick 
push.  He  lost  his  footing  and  tumbled  into  a  heap 
in  the  gutter.  The  woman  faltered  an  instant,  as  if 
to  see  whether  he  was  seriously  hurt,  and  then  turned 
and  ran. 


150  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

When  Corey  and  the  book-keeper  re-entered  the 
office,  Miss  Dewey  had  finished  her  lunch,  and  was 
putting  a  sheet  of  paper  into  her  type- writer.  She 
looked  up  at  them  with  her  eyes  of  turquoise  blue, 
under  her  low  white  forehead,  with  the  hair  neatly 
rippled  over  it,  and  then  began  to  beat  the  keys  of 
her  machine. 


IX. 


LAPHAM  had  the  pride  which  comes  of  self -making, 
and  he  would  not  openly  lower  his  crest  to  the  young 
fellow  he  had  taken  into  his  business.  He  was  going 
.to  be  obviously  master  in  his  own  place  to  every  one ; 
and  during  the  hours  of  business  he  did  nothing  to 
distinguish  Corey  from  the  half-dozen  other  clerks 
and  book-keepers  in  the  outer  office,  but  he  was  not 
silent  about  the  fact  that  Bromfield  Corey's  son  had 
taken  a  fancy  to  come  to  him.  "  Did  you  notice  that 
fellow  at  the  desk  facing  my  type-writer  girl  ]  Well, 
sir,  that 's  the  son  of  Bromfield  Corey — old  Phillips 
Corey's  grandson.  And  I  '11  say  this  for  him,  that 
there  isn't  a  man  in  the  office  that  looks  after  his 
work  better.  There  isn't  anything  he 's  too  good  for. 
He 's  right  here  at  nine  every  morning,  before  the 
clock  gets  in  the  word.  I  guess  it 's  his  grandfather 
coming  out  in  him.  He's  got  charge  of  the  foreign 
correspondence.  We  're  pushing  the  paint  every 
where."  He  flattered  himself  that  he  did  not  lug 
the  matter  in.  He  had  been  warned  against  that 
by  his  wife,  but  he  had  the  right  to  do  Corey 
justice,  and  his  brag  took  the  form  of  illustration. 
"  Talk  about  training  for  business — I  tell  you  it 's  all 

151 


152  THE  RISE  OF 

in  the  man  himself  !  I  used  to  believe  in  what  old 
Horace  Greeley  said  about  college  graduates  being 
the  poorest  kind  of  horned  cattle  ;  but  I  've  changed 
my  mind  a  little.  You  take  that  fellow  Corey.  He 's 
been  through  Harvard,  and  he's  had  about  every 
advantage  that  a  fellow  could  have.  Been  every 
where,  and  talks  half  a  dozen  languages  like  English. 
I  suppose  he's  got  money  enough  to  live  without 
lifting  a  hand,  any  more  than  his  father  does ;  son 
of  Bromfield  Corey,  you  know.  But  the  thing  was 
in  him.  He 's  a  natural-born  business  man  ;  and 
I  Ve  had  many  a  fellow  with  me  that  had  come  up 
out  of  the  street,  and  worked  hard  all  his  life,  with 
out  ever  losing  his  original  opposition  to  the  thing. 
But  Corey  likes  it.  I  believe  the  fellow  would  like 
to  stick  at  that  desk  of  his  night  and  day.  I  don't 
know  where  he  got  it.  I  guess  it  must  be  his  grand 
father,  old  Phillips  Corey ;  it  often  skips  a  genera 
tion,  you  know.  But  what  I  say  is,  a  thing  has 
got  to  be  born  in  a  man  ;  and  if  it  ain't  born  in  him, 
all  the  privations  in  the  world  won't  put  it  there, 
and  if  it  is,  all  the  college  training  won't  take  it 
out" 

Sometimes  Lapham  advanced  these  ideas  at  his 
own  table,  to  a  guest  whom  he  had  brought  to 
Nantasket  for  the  night  Then  he  suffered  exposure 
and  ridicule  at  the  hands  of  his  wife,  when  oppor 
tunity  offered.  She  would  not  let  him  bring  Corey 
down  to  Nantasket  at  all. 

"  No,  indeed  ! "  she  said.  "  I  am  not  going  to 
have  them  think  we  're  running  after  him.  If  he 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  153 

wants  to  see  Irene,  he  can  find  out  ways  of  doing  it 
for  himself." 

"  Who  wants  him  to  see  Irene  1 "  retorted  the 
Colonel  angrily. 

"  I  do,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  And  I  want  him 
to  see  her  without  any  of  your  connivance,  Silas. 
I  'm  not  going  to  have  it  said  that  I  put  my  girls  at 
anybody.  Why  don't  you  invite  some  of  your 
other  clerks  1 " 

"  He  ain't  just  like  the  other  clerks.  He 's  going 
to  take  charge  of  a  part  of  the  business.  It 's  quite 
another  thing." 

"  Oh,  indeed  ! "  said  Mrs.  Lapham  vexatiously. 
"  Then  you  are  going  to  take  a  partner." 

"  I  shall  ask  him  down  if  I  choose  ! "  returned  the 
Colonel,  disdaining  her  insinuation. 

His  wife  laughed  with  the  fearlessness  of  a  woman 
who  knows  her  husband. 

"  But  you  won't  choose  when  you  Ve  thought  it 
over,  Si."  Then  she  applied  an  emollient  to  his 
chafed  surface.  "  Don't  you  suppose  I  feel  as  you 
do  about  it  1  I  know  just  how  proud  you  are,  and 
I'm  not  going  to  have  you  do  anything  that  will 
make  you  feel  meeching  afterward.  You  just  let 
things  take  their  course.  If  he  wants  Irene,  he's 
going  to  find  out  some  way  of  seeing  her ;  and  if  he 
don't,  all  the  plotting  and  planning  in  the  world 
isn't  going  to  make  him." 

"  Who 's  plotting  1 "  again  retorted  the  Colonel, 
shuddering  at  the  utterance  of  hopes  and  ambitions 
which  a  man  hides  with  shame,  but  a  woman  talks 


154  THE  RISE  OF 

over  as  freely  and  coolly  as  if  they  were  items  of  a 
milliner's  bill. 

"  Oh,  not  you  f"  exulted  his  wife.  "  I  understand 
what  you  want.  You  want  to  get  this  fellow,  who 
is  neither  partner  nor  clerk,  down  here  to  talk 
business  with  him.  Well,  now,  you  just  talk 
business  with  him  at  the  office." 

The  only  social  attention  which  Lapham  suc 
ceeded  in  offering  Corey  was  to  take  him  in  his 
buggy,  now  and  then,  for  a  spin  out  over  the  Mill- 
dam.  He  kept  the  mare  in  town,  and  on  a  pleasant 
afternoon  he  liked  to  knock  off  early,  as  he  phrased 
it,  and  let  the  mare  out  a  little.  Corey  understood 
something  about  horses,  though  in  a  passionless 
way,  and  he  would  have  preferred  to  talk  business 
when  obliged  to  talk  horse.  But  he  deferred  to  his 
business  superior  with  the  sense  of  discipline  which 
is  innate  in  the  apparently  insubordinate  American 
nature.  If  Corey  could  hardly  have  helped  feeling 
the  social  difference  between  Lapham  and  himself, 
in  his  presence  he  silenced  his  traditions,  and 
showed  him  all  the  respect  that  he  could  have 
exacted  from  any  of  his  clerks.  He  talked  horse 
with  him,  and  when  the  Colonel  wished  he  talked 
house.  Besides  himself  and  his  paint  Lapham  had 
not  many  other  topics ;  and  if  he  had  a  choice 
between  the  mare  and  the  edifice  on  the  water  side 
of  Beacon  Street,  it  was  just  now  the  latter.  Some 
times,  in  driving  in  or  out,  he  stopped  at  the  house, 
and  made  Corey  his  guest  there,  if  he  might  not  at 
Nantasket ;  and  one  day  it  happened  that  the  young 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  155 

man  met  Irene  there  again.  She  had  come  up  with 
her  mother  alone,  and  they  were  in  the  house, 
interviewing  the  carpenter  as  before,  when  the 
Colonel  jumped  out  of  his  buggy  and  cast  anchor 
at  the  pavement.  More  exactly,  Mrs.  Lapham  was 
interviewing  the  carpenter,  and  Irene  was  sitting  in 
the  bow-window  on  a  trestle,  and  looking  out  at  the 
driving.  She  saw  him  come  up  with  her  father, 
and  bowed  and  blushed.  Her  father  went  on  up 
stairs  to  find  her  mother,  and  Corey  pulled  up  another 
trestle  which  he  found  in  the  back  part  of  the  room. 
The  first  floorings  had  been  laid  throughout  the 
house,  and  the  partitions  had  been  lathed  so  that 
one  could  realise  the  shape  of  the  interior. 

"  I  suppose  you  will  sit  at  this  window  a  good 
deal,"  said  the  young  man. 

"Yes,  I  think  it  will  be  very  nice.  There's  so 
much  more  going  on  than  there  is  in  the  Square." 

"  It  must  be  very  interesting  to  you  to  see  the 
house  grow." 

"  It  is.  Only  it  doesn't  seem  to  grow  so  fast  as 
I  expected." 

"Why,  I'm  amazed  at  the  progress  your  car 
penter  has  made  every  time  I  come." 

The  girl  looked  down,  and  then  lifting  her  eyes 
she  said,  with  a  sort  of  timorous  appeal — 

"I've  been  reading  that  book  since  you  were 
down  at  Nantasket." 

"Book?"  repeated  Corey,  while  she  reddened 
with  disappointment.  "  Oh  yes.  Middlemarch. 
Did  you  like  it  1" 


156  THE  RISE  CF 

"  I  haven't  got  through  with  it  yet.  Pen  has 
finished  it." 

"  What  does  she  think  of  it  1" 

"  Oh,  I  think  she  likes  it  very  well.  I  haven't 
heard  her  talk  about  it  much.  Do  you  like  it  ?" 

"  Yes  ;  I  liked  it  immensely.  But  it 's  several 
years  since  I  read  it." 

"  I  didn't  know  it  was  so  old.  It 's  just  got  into 
the  Seaside  Library,"  she  urged,  with  a  little  sense 
of  injury  in  her  tone. 

"  Oh,  it  hasn't  been  out  such  a  very  great  while," 
said  Corey  politely.  "  It  came  a  little  before  Daniel 
Deronda" 

The  girl  was  again  silent.  She  followed  the  curl 
of  a  shaving  on  the  floor  with  the  point  of  her 
parasol. 

"Do  you  like  that  Eosamond  Vincy  ?"  she  asked, 
without  looking  up. 

Corey  smiled  in  his  kind  way. 

"  I  didn't  suppose  she  was  expected  to  have  any 
friends.  I  can't  say  I  liked  her.  But  I  don't  think 
I  disliked  her  so  much  as  the  author  does.  She 's 
pretty  hard  on  her  good-looking" — he  was  going  to 
say  girls,  but  as  if  that  might  have  been  rather  per 
sonal,  he  said — "people." 

"  Yes,  that 's  what  Pen  says.  She  says  she  doesn't 
give  her  any  chance  to  be  good.  She  says  she  should 
have  been  just  as  bad  as  Rosamond  if  she  had  been 
in  her  place." 

The  young  man  laughed.  "  Your  sister  is  very 
satirical,  isn't  she  ?" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  157 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Irene,  still  intent  upon  the 
convolutions  of  the  shaving.  "  She  keeps  us 
laughing.  Papa  thinks  there 's  nobody  that  can  talk 
like  her."  She  gave  the  shaving  a  little  toss  from 
her,  and  took  the  parasol  up  across  her  lap.  The 
unworldliness  of  the  Lapham  girls  did  not  extend 
to  their  dress ;  Irene's  costume  was  very  stylish, 
and  she  governed  her  head  and  shoulders  stylishly. 
"  AVe  are  going  to  have  the  back  room  upstairs  for 
a  music-room  and  library,"  she  said  abruptly. 

"Yes]"  returned  Corey.  "I  should  think  that 
would  be  charming." 

"  We  expected  to  have  book-cases,  but  the  archi 
tect  wants  to  build  the  shelves  in." 

The  fact  seemed  to  be  referred  to  Corey  for  his 
comment. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  would  be  the  best  way. 
They  '11  look  like  part  of  the  room  then.  You  can 
make  them  low,  and  hang  your  pictures  above  them." 

"Yes,  that's  what  he  said."  The  girl  looked  out 
of  the  window  in  adding,  "  I  presume  with  nice 
bindings  it  will  look  very  well." 

"  Oh,  nothing  furnishes  a  room  like  books." 

"No.  There  will  have  to  be  a  good  many  of 
them." 

"That  depends  upon  the  size  of  your  room  and 
the  number  of  your  shelves." 

"  Oh,  of  course  !  I  presume,"  said  Irene,  thought 
fully,  "we  shall  have  to  have  Gibbon."  ' 

"If  you  want  to  read  him,'  said  Corey,  with  a 
laugh  of  sympathy  for  an  imaginable  joke. 


158  THE  RISE  OF 

"We  had  a  great  deal  about  him  at  school.  I 
believe  we  had  one  of  his  books.  Mine 's  lost,  but 
Pen  will  remember." 

The  young  man  looked  at  her,  and  then  said, 
seriously,  "You'll  want  Greene,  of  course,  and 
Motley,  and  Parkman." 

"  Yes.     What  kind  of  writers  are  they  ?" 

"  They  're  historians  too." 

"  Oh  yes;  I  remember  now.  That 's  what  Gibbon 
was.  Is  it  Gibbon  or  Gibbons  1 " 

The  young  man  decided  the  point  with  apparently 
superfluous  delicacy.  "Gibbon,  I  think." 

"  There  used  to  be  so  many  of  them,"  said  Irene 
gaily.  "  I  used  to  get  them  mixed  up  with  each 
other,  and  I  couldn't  tell  them  from  the  poets. 
Should  you  want  to  have  poetry  1 " 

"Yes;  I  suppose  some  edition  of  the  English 
poets." 

"  We  don't  any  of  us  like  poetry.  Do  you  like 
it?" 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  very  much,"  Corey  owned. 
,"But,  of  course,  there  was  a  time  when  Tennyson 
was  a  great  deal  more  to  me  than  he  is  now." 

"We  had  something  about  him  at  school  too. 
I  think  I  remember  the  name.  I  think  we  ought  to 
have  all  the  American  poets." 

"  Well,  not  all.  Five  or  six  of  the  best :  you 
want  Longfellow  and  Bryant  and  Whittier  and 
Holmes  and  Emerson  and  Lowell." 

The  girl  listened  attentively,  as  if  making  mental 
note  of  the  names. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  159 

"  And  Shakespeare,"  she  added.  "  Don't  you  like 
Shakespeare's  plays  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  very  much." 

"I  used  to  be  perfectly  crazy  about  his  plays. 
Don't  you  think  'Hamlet'  is  splendid?  We  had 
ever  so  much  about  Shakespeare.  Weren't  you  per 
fectly  astonished  when  you  found  out  how  many 
other  plays  of  his  there  were  1  I  always  thought 
there  was  nothing  but  'Hamlet'  and  'Eomeo  and 
Juliet'  and  'Macbeth'  and  'Eichard  in.'  and  'King 
Lear,'  and  that  one  that  Eobeson  and  Crane  have 
— oh  yes  !  '  Comedy  of  Errors.'" 

"Those  are  the  ones  they  usually  play,"  said 
Corey. 

"  I  presume  we  shall  have  to  have  Scott's  works," 
said  Irene,  returning  to  the  question  of  books. 

"Oh  yes." 

"  One  of  the  girls  used  to  think  he  was  great  She 
was  always  talking  about  Scott."  Irene  made  a 
pretty  little  amiably  contemptuous  mouth.  "  He 
isn't  American,  though  ] "  she  suggested. 

"No,"  said  Corey;  "he's  Scotch,  I  believe." 

Irene  passed  her  glove  over  her  forehead.  "I 
always  get  him  mixed  up  with  Cooper.  Well,  papa 
has  got  to  get  them.  If  we  have  a  library,  we  have 
got  to  have  books  in  it.  Pen  says  it's  perfectly 
ridiculous  having  one.  But  papa  thinks  whatever 
the  architect  says  is  right.  He  fought  him  hard 
enough  at  first.  I  don't  see  how  any  one  can  keep 
the  poets  and  the  historians  and  novelists  separate 
in  their  mind.  Of  course  papa  will  buy  them  if  we 


1 60  THE  RISE  OF 

say  so.  But  I  don't  see  how  I  'm  ever  going  to  tell 
him  which  ones."  The  joyous  light  faded  out  of  her 
face  and  left  it  pensive. 

"Why,  if  you  like,"  said  the  young  man,  taking 
out  his  pencil,  "  1 11  put  down  the  names  we  've  been 
talking  about." 

He  clapped  himself  on  his  breast  pockets  to  detect 
some  lurking  scrap  of  paper. 

"  "Will  you  ?"  she  cried  delightedly.  "  Here  !  take 
one  of  my  cards,"  and  she  pulled  out  her  card-case. 
"  The  carpenter  writes  on  a  three-cornered  block  and 
puts  it  into  his  pocket,  and  it 's  so  uncomfortable  he 
can't  help  remembering  it.  Pen  says  she 's  going  to 
adopt  the  three-cornered-block  plan  with  papa." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Corey.  "  I  believe  I  '11  use  your 
card."  He  crossed  over  to  her,  and  after  a  moment 
sat  down  on  the  trestle  beside  her.  She  looked  over 
the  card  as  he  wrote.  "Those  are  the  ones  we 
mentioned,  but  perhaps  I  'd  better  add  a  few  others." 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  she  said,  when  he  had  written 
the  card  full  on  both  sides.  "  He  has  got  to  get  them 
in  the  nicest  binding,  too.  I  shall  tell  him  about 
their  helping  to  furnish  the  room,  and  then  he  can't 
object."  She  remained  with  the  card,  looking  at  it 
rather  wistfully. 

Perhaps  Corey  divined  her  trouble  of  mind.  "If 
he  will  take  that  to  any  bookseller,  and  tell  him 
what  bindings  he  wants,  he  will  fill  the  order  for 
him." 

"  Oh,  thank  you  very  much,"  she  said,  and  put  the 
card  back  into  her  card-case  with  great  apparent 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  161 

relief.  Then  she  turned  her  lovely  face  toward  the 
young  man,  beaming  with  the  triumph  a  woman  feels 
in  any  bit  of  successful  manoeuvring,  and  began  to 
talk  with  recovered  gaiety  of  other  things,  as  if, 
having  got  rid  of  a  matter  annoying  out  of  all  pro 
portion  to  its  importance,  she  was  now  going  to 
indemnify  herself. 

Corey  did  not  return  to  his  own  trestle.  She 
found  another  shaving  within  reach  of  her  parasol, 
and  began  poking  that  with  it,  and  trying  to  follow 
it  through  its  folds.  Corey  watched  her  a  while. 

"  You  seem  to  have  a  great  passion  for  playing 
with  shavings,"  he  said.  "  Is  it  a  new  one  ?" 

"New  what?" 

"  Passion." 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said,  dropping  her  eyelids, 
and  keeping  on  with  her  effort.  She  looked  shyly 
aslant  at  him.  "  Perhaps  you  don't  approve  of  play 
ing  with  shavings  1" 

"  Oh  yes,  I  do.  I  admire  it  very  much.  But  it 
seems  rather  difficult.  I  Ve  a  great  ambition  to  put 
my  foot  on  the  shaving's  tail  and  hold  it  for  you." 

11  Well,"  said  the  girl. 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  young  man.  He  did  so, 
and  now  she  ran  her  parasol  point  easily  through  it. 
They  looked  at  each  other  and  laughed.  "That 
was  wonderful.  Would  you  like  to  try  another  ?" 
he  asked. 

"No,  I  thank  you,"  she  replied.  "I  think  one 
will  do." 

They  both  laughed  again,  for  whatever  reason  or 


162  THE  RISE  OF 

no  reason,  and  then  the  young  girl  became  sober. 
To  a  girl  everything  a  young  man  does  is  of  signifi 
cance  ;  and  if  he  holds  a  shaving  down  with  his  foot 
while  she  pokes  through  it  with  her  parasol,  she 
must  ask  herself  what  he  means  by  it. 

"  They  seem  to  be  having  rather  a  long  interview 
with  the  carpenter  to-day,"  said  Irene,  looking 
vaguely  toward  the  ceiling.  She  turned  with  polite 
ceremony  to  Corey.  "I'm  afraid  you're  letting 
them  keep  you.  You  mustn't." 

"  Oh  no.     You  're  letting  me  stay,"  he  returned. 

She  bridled  and  bit  her  lip  for  pleasure.  "  I  pre 
sume  they  will  be  down  before  a  great  while.  Don't 
you  like  the  smell  of  the  wood  and  the  mortar  ?  It's 
so  fresh." 

"  Yes,  it 's  delicious."  He  bent  forward  and  picked 
up  from  the  floor  the  shaving  with  which  they  had 
been  playing,  and  put  it  to  his  nose.  "It's  like  a 
flower.  May  I  offer  it  to  you  V  he  asked,  as  if  it 
had  been  one. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you  !"  She  took  it  from 
him  and  put  it  into  her  belt,  and  then  they  both 
laughed  once  more. 

Steps  were  heard  descending.  When  the  elder 
people  reached  the  floor  where  they  were  sitting, 
Corey  rose  and  presently  took  his  leave. 

"  What  makes  you  so  solemn,  'Rene  ? "  asked  Mrs. 
Lapham. 

"Solemn?"  echoed  the  girl  "  I  'm  not  a  bit  solemn. 
What  can  you  mean  ?" 

Corey  dined  at  home  that  evening,  and  as  he  sat 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  163 

looking  across  the  table  at  his  father,  he  said,  "I 
wonder  what  the  average  literature  of  non-cultivated 
people  is." 

"Ah,"  said  the  elder,  "I  suspect  the  average  is 
pretty  low  even  with  cultivated  people.  You  don't 
read  a  great  many  books  yourself,  Tom." 

"No,  I  don't,"  the  young  man  confessed.  "I 
read  more  books  when  I  was  with  Stanton,  last 
winter,  than  I  had  since  I  was  a  boy.  But  I  read 
them  because  I  must — there  was  nothing  else  to  do. 
It  wasn't  because  I  was  fond  of  reading.  Still  I 
think  I  read  with  some  sense  of  literature  and  the 
difference  between  authors.  I  don't  suppose  that 
people  generally  do  that ;  I  have  met  people  who 
had  read  books  without  troubling  themselves  to  find 
out  even  the  author's  name,  much  less  trying  to 
decide  upon  his  quality.  I  suppose  that 's  the  way 
the  vast  majority  of  people  read." 

"Yes.  If  authors  were  not  almost  necessarily 
recluses,  and  ignorant  of  the  ignorance  about  them, 
I  don't  see  how  they  could  endure  it.  Of  course 
they  are  fated  to  be  overwhelmed  by  oblivion  at 
last,  poor  fellows ;  but  to  see  it  weltering  all  round 
them  while  they  are  in  the  very  act  of  achieving 
immortality  must  be  tremendously  discouraging.  I 
don't  suppose  that  we  who  have  the  habit  of  read 
ing,  and  at  least  a  nodding  acquaintance  with  litera 
ture,  can  imagine  the  bestial  darkness  of  the  great 
mass  of  people — even  people  whose  houses  are  rich 
and  whose  linen  is  purple  and  fine.  But  occasion 
ally  we  get  glimpses  of  it.  I  suppose  you  found  the 


164  THE  RISE  OF 

latest  publications  lying  all  about  in  Lapham  cottage 
when  you  were  down  there  1 " 

Young  Corey  laughed.  "  It  wasn't  exactly  cum 
bered  with  them." 

"Nol" 

"  To  tell  the  truth,  I  don't  suppose  they  ever  buy 
books.  The  young  ladies  get  novels  that  they  hear 
talked  of  out  of  the  circulating  library." 

"  Had  they  knowledge  enough  to  be  ashamed  of 
their  ignorance  ? " 

"Yes,  in  certain  ways — to  a  certain  degree." 

"  It 's  a  curious  thing,  this  thing  we  call  civilisa 
tion,"  said  the  elder  musingly.  "  We  think  it  is  an 
affair  of  epochs  and  of  nations.  It 's  really  an  affair 
of  individuals.  One  brother  will  be  civilised  and 
the  other  a  barbarian.  I  've  occasionally  met  young 
girls  who  were  so  brutally,  insolently,  wilfully 
indifferent  to  the  arts  which  make  civilisation  that 
they  ought  to  have  been  clothed  in  the  skins  of 
wild  beasts  and  gone  about  barefoot  with  clubs  over 
their  shoulders.  Yet  they  were  of  polite  origin,  and 
their  parents  were  at  least  respectful  of  the  things 
that  these  young  animals  despised." 

"  I  don't  think  that  is  exactly  the  case  with  the 
Lapham  family,"  said  the  son,  smiling.  "  The  father 
and  mother  rather  apologised  about  not  getting  time 
to  read,  and  the  young  ladies  by  no  means  scorned 
it." 

"  They  are  quite  advanced  !" 

"  They  are  going  to  have  a  library  in  their  Beacon 
Street  house." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  165 

"  Oh,  poor  things  !  How  are  they  ever  going  to 
get  the  books  together  ?  " 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  the  son,  colouring  a  little,  "  1 
have  been  indirectly  applied  to  for  help." 

"  You,  Tom  ! "  His  father  dropped  back  in  his 
chair  and  laughed. 

"  I  recommended  the  standard  authors,"  said  the 
son. 

"  Oh,  I  never  supposed  your  prudence  would  be  at 
fault,  Tom ! " 

"  But  seriously,"  said  the  young  man,  generously 
smiling  in  sympathy  with  his  father's  enjoyment, 
"  they  're  not  unintelligent  people.  They  are  very 
quick,  and  they  are  shrewd  and  sensible." 

"  I  have  no  doubt  that  some  of  the  Sioux  are  so. 
But  that  is  not  saying  that  they  are  civilised.  All 
civilisation  comes  through  literature  now,  especially 
in  our  country.  A  Greek  got  his  civilisation  by 
talking  and  looking,  and  in  some  measure  a  Parisian 
may  still  do  it.  But  we,  who  live  remote  from 
history  and  monuments,  we  must  read  or  we  must 
barbarise.  Once  we  were  softened,  if  not  polished, 
by  religion  ;  but  I  suspect  that  the  pulpit  counts  for 
much  less  now  in  civilising." 

"  They  're  enormous  devourers  of  newspapers,  and 
theatre-goers  ;  and  they  go  a  great  deal  to  lectures. 
The  Colonel  prefers  them  with  the  stereopticon." 

"  They  might  get  a  something  in  that  way,"  said 
the  elder  thoughtfully.  "  Yes,  I  suppose  one  must 
take  those  things  into  account — especially  the  news 
papers  and  the  lectures.  I  doubt  if  the  theatre  is  a 


166  THE  RISE  OF 

factor  in  civilisation  among  us.  I  dare  say  it  doesn't 
deprave  a  great  deal,  but  from  what  I  Ve  seen  of  it  I 
should  say  that  it  was  intellectually  degrading. 
Perhaps  they  might  get  some  sort  of  lift  from  it ; 
I  don't  know.  Tom  ! "  he  added,  after  a  moment's 
reflection.  "  I  really  think  I  ought  to  see  this  patron 
of  yours.  Don't  you  think  it  would  be  rather  decent 
in  me  to  make  his  acquaintance  ? " 

"  Well,  if  you  have  the  fancy,  sir,"  said  the  young 
man.  "  But  there  's  no  sort  of  obligation.  Colonel 
Lapham  would  be  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  want 
to  give  our  relation  any  sort  of  social  character.  The 
meeting  will  come  about  in  the  natural  course  of 
things." 

"  Ah,  I  didn't  intend  to  propose  anything  im 
mediate,"  said  the  father.  "  One  can't  do  anything 
in  the  summer,  and  I  should  prefer  your  mother's 
superintendence.  Still,  I  can't  rid  myself  of  the 
idea  of  a  dinner.  It  appears  to  me  that  there  ought 
to  be  a  dinner." 

"  Oh,  pray  don't  feel  that  there  's  any  necessity." 

"Well,"  said  the  elder,  with  easy  resignation, 
"  there 's  at  least  no  hurry." 

"  There  is  one  thing  I  don't  like,"  said  Lapham, 
in  the  course  of  one  of  those  talks  which  came  up 
between  his  wife  and  himself  concerning  Corey,  "  or 
at  least  I  don't  understand  it ;  and  that 's  the  way 
his  father  behaves.  I  don't  want  to  force  myself  on 
any  man ;  but  it  seems  to  me  pretty  queer  the  way 
he  holds  off.  I  should  think  he  would  take  enough 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  167 

interest  in  his  son  to  want  to  know  something  about 
his  business.  What  is  he  afraid  oil"  demanded 
Lapham  angrily.  "  Does  he  think  I  'm  going  to 
jump  at  a  chance  to  get  in  with  him,  if  he  gives  me 
one  ?  He 's  mightily  mistaken  if  he  does.  /  don't 
want  to  know  him." 

"  Silas,"  said  his  wife,  making  a  wife's  free  version 
of  her  husband's  words,  and  replying  to  their  spirit 
rather  than  their  letter,  "  I  hope  you  never  said  a 
word  to  Mr.  Corey  to  let  him  know  the  way  you 
feel." 

"  I  never  mentioned  his  father  to  him  ! "  roared 
the  Colonel.  "  That 's  the  way  I  feel  about  it ! " 

"  Because  it  would  spoil  everything.  I  wouldn't 
have  them  think  we  cared  the  least  thing  in  the 
world  for  their  acquaintance.  We  shouldn't  be  a 
bit  better  off.  We  don't  know  the  same  people  they 
do,  and  we  don't  care  for  the  same  kind  of  things." 

Lapham  was  breathless  with  resentment  of  his 
wife's  implication.  "  Don't  I  tell  you,"  he  gasped, 
"  that  I  don't  want  to  know  them  1  Who  began  it  1 
They  're  friends  of  yours  if  they  're  anybody's." 

"  They  're  distant  acquaintances  of  mine,"  returned 
Mrs.  Lapham  quietly ;  "  and  this  young  Corey  is  a 
clerk  of  yours.  And  I  want  we  should  hold  ourselves 
so  that  when  they  get  ready  to  make  the  advances  we 
can  meet  them  half-way  or  not,  just  as  we  choose." 

"That's  what  grinds  me,"  cried  her  husband. 
"  Why  should  we  wait  for  them  to  make  the 
advances  ]  Why  shouldn't  we  make  'em  ?  Are  they 
any  better  than  we  are  ?  My  note  of  hand  would 


168  THE  RISE  OF 

be  worth  ten  times  what  Bromfield  Corey's  is  on  the 
street  to-day.  And  I  made  my  money.  I  haven*'t 
loafed  my  life  away." 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  what  you  've  got,  and  it  isn't  what 
you  've  done  exactly.  It 's  what  you  are." 

"  Well,  then,  what 's  the  difference  1 " 

"  None  that  really  amounts  to  anything,  or  that 
need  give  you  any  trouble,  if  you  don't  think  of  it. 
But  he 's  been  all  his  life  in  society,  and  he  knows 
just  what  to  say  and  what  to  do,  and  he  can  talk 
about  the  things  that  society  people  like  to  talk 
about,  and  you — can't." 

Lapham  gave  a  furious  snort.  "And  does  that 
make  him  any  better  ? " 

"No.  But  it  puts  him  where  he  can  make  the 
advances  without  demeaning  himself,  and  it  puts 
you  where  you  can't.  Now,  look  here,  Silas  Lapham ! 
You  understand  this  thing  as  well  as  I  do.  You 
know  that  I  appreciate  you,  and  that  I  'd  sooner  die 
than  have  you  humble  yourself  to  a  living  soul. 
But  I  'm  not  going  to.  have  you  coming  to  me,  and 
pretending  that  you  can  meet  Bromfield  Corey  as  an 
equal  on  his  own  ground.  You  can't.  He  's  got  a 
better  education  than  yon,  and  if  he  hasn't  got  more 
brains  than  you,  he  's  got  different.  And  he  and  his 
wife,  and  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  before  'em, 
have  always  had  a  high  position,  and  you  can't  help 
it.  If  you  want  to  know  them,  you've  got  to  let 
them  make  the  advances.  If  you  don't,  all  well  and 
good." 

"  I  guess,"  said  the  chafed  and  vanquished  Colonel, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  169 

after  a  moment  for  swallowing  the  pill,  "  that  they  'd 
have  been  in  a  pretty  fix  if  you  'd  waited  to  let  them 
make  the  advances  last  summer." 

"  That  was  a  different  thing  altogether.  I  didn't 
know  who  they  were,  or  may  be  I  should  have 
waited.  But  all  I  say  now  is  that  if  you've  got 
young  Corey  into  business  with  you,  in  hopes  of  our 
getting  into  society  with  his  father,  you  better  ship 
him  at  once.  For  I  ain't  going  to  have  it  on  that 
basis." 

"  Who  wants  to  have  it  on  that  basis  1 "  retorted 
her  husband. 

"  Nobody,  if  you  don't,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham  tran 
quilly. 

Irene  had  come  home  with  the  shaving  in  her  belt, 
unnoticed  by  her  father,  and  unquestioned  by  her 
mother.  But  her  sister  saw  it  at  once,  and  asked 
her  what  she  was  doing  with  it. 

"  Oh,  nothing,"  said  Irene,  with  a  joyful  smile  of 
self -betrayal,  taking  the  shaving  carefully  out,  and 
laying  it  among  the  laces  and  ribbons  in  her  drawer. 

"  Hadn't  you  better  put  it  in  water,  'Rene  ?  It  '11 
be  all  wilted  by  morning,"  said  Pen. 

"  You  mean  thing  ! "  cried  the  happy  girl.  "  It 
isn't  a  flower  !  " 

"  Oh,  I  thought  it  was  a  whole  bouquet.  Who 
gave  it  to  you  ? " 

"I  shan't  tell  you,"  said  Irene  saucily. 

"  Oh,  well,  never  mind.  Did  you  know  Mr. 
Corey  had  been  down  here  this  afternoon,  walking 
on  the  beach  with  me  '( " 


170  THE  RISE  OF 

"  He  wasn't — he  wasn't  at  all !  He  was  at  the 
house  with  me.  There  !  I  've  caught  you  fairly." 

"  Is  that  so  ?"  drawled  Penelope.  "  Then  I  never 
could  guess  who  gave  you  that  precious  shaving." 

"  No,  you  couldn't ! "  said  Irene,  flushing  beauti 
fully.  "  And  you  may  guess,  and  you  may  guess, 
and  you  may  guess !  "  With  her  lovely  eyes  she 
coaxed  her  sister  to  keep  on  teasing  her,  and  Pene 
lope  continued  the  comedy  with  the  patience  that 
women  have  for  such  things. 

"  Well,  I  'm  not  going  to  try,  if  it 's  no  use.  But 
I  didn't  know  it  had  got  to  be  the  fashion  to  give 
shavings  instead  of  flowers.  But  there 's  some  sense 
in  it.  They  can  be  used  for  kindlings  when  they 
get  old,  and  you  can't  do  anything  with  old  flowers. 
Perhaps  he  '11  get  to  sending  'em  by  the  barrel." 

Irene  laughed  for  pleasure  in  this  tormenting. 
"  0  Pen,  I  want  to  tell  you  how  it  all  happened." 

"  Oh,  he  did  give  it  to  you,  then  ?  Well,  I  guess 
I  don't  care  to  hear." 

"  You  shall,  and  you  've  got  to  ! "  Irene  ran  and 
caught  her  sister,  who  feigned  to  be  going  out  of  the 
room,  and  pushed  her  into  a  chair.  "  There,  now  ! " 
She  pulled  up  another  chair,  and  hemmed  her  in 
with  it.  "  He  came  over,  and  sat  down  on  the 
trestle  alongside  of  me — 

"  What  ]     As  close  as  you  are  to  me  now  ?  " 

"  You  wretch  !  I  will  give  it  to  you  !  No,  at  a 
proper  distance.  And  here  was  this  shaving  on  the 
floor,  that  I  'd  been  poking  with  my  parasol " 

"  To  hide  your  embarrassment." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  171 

"  Pshaw  !  I  wasn't  a  bit  embarrassed.  I  was  just 
as  much  at  my  ease  !  And  then  he  asked  me  to  let  him 
hold  the  shaving  down  with  his  foot,  while  I  went 
on  with  my  poking.  And  I  said  yes  he  might 

"  What  a  bold  girl  !  You  said  he  might  hold  a 
shaving  down  for  you  1 " 

"  And  then — and  then "  continued  Irene,  lift 
ing  her  eyes  absently,  and  losing  herself  in  the  beatific 

recollection,  "  and  then Oh  yes  !  Then  I  asked 

him  if  he  didn't  like  the  smell  of  pine  shavings. 
And  then  he  picked  it  up,  and  said  it  smelt  like  a 
flower.  And  then  he  asked  if  he  might  offer  it  to 
me — just  for  a  joke,  you  know.  And  I  took  it,  and 
stuck  it  in  my  belt.  And  we  had  such  a  laugh  ! 
We  got  into  a  regular  gale.  And  0  Pen,  what  do 
you  suppose  he  meant  by  it  1 "  She  suddenly 
caught  herself  to  her  sister's  breast,  and  hid  her 
burning  face  on  her  shoulder. 

"  Well,  there  used  to  be  a  book  about  the 
language  of  flowers.  But  I  never  knew  much 
about  the  language  of  shavings,  and  I  can't  say 
exactly " 

"  Oh,  don't — don't,  Pen  ! "  and  here  Irene  gave 
over  laughing,  and  began  to  sob  in  her  sister's  arms. 

"  Why,  'Rene  !  "  cried  the  elder  girl. 

"  You  knoic  he  didn't  mean  anything.  He  doesn't 
care  a  bit  about  me.  He  hates  me !  He  despises 
me  !  Oh,  what  shall  I  do  1" 

A  trouble  passed  over  the  face  of  the  sister  as  she 
silently  comforted  the  child  in  her  arms;  then  the 
drolling  light  came  back  into  her  eyes.  "  Well, 


172  THE  RISE  OF 

'Rene,  you  haven't  got  to  do  anything.  That 's  one 
advantage  girls  have  got — if  it  is  an  advantage. 
I  'm  not  always  sure." 

Irene's  tears  turned  to  laughing  again.  When 
she  lifted  her  head  it  was  to  look  into  the  mirror 
confronting  them,  where  her  beauty  showed  all  the 
more  brilliant  for  the  shower  that  had  passed  over 
it.  She  seemed  to  gather  courage  from  the  sight. 

"It  must  be  awful  to  have  to  do,"  she  said, 
smiling  into  her  own  face.  "  I  don't  see  how 
they  ever  can." 

"  Some  of  'em  can't — especially  when  there 's  such 
a  tearing  beauty  around." 

"  Oh,  pshaw,  Pen !  you  know  that  isn't  so. 
You've  got  a  real  pretty  mouth,  Pen,"  she  added 
thoughtfully,  surveying  the  feature  in  the  glass,  and 
then  pouting  her  own  lips  for  the  sake  of  that  effect 
on  them. 

"  It 's  a  useful  mouth,"  Penelope  admitted ;  "  I 
don't  believe  I  could  get  along  without  it  now,  I  've 
had  it  so  long." 

"  It 's  got  such  a  funny  expression — just  the  mate 
of  the  look  in  your  eyes  ;  as  if  you  were  just  going 
to  say  something  ridiculous.  He  said,  the  very  first 
time  he  saw  you,  that  he  knew  you  were  humorous." 

"  Is  it  possible  ?  It  must  be  so,  if  the  Grand 
Mogul  said  it.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  so  before, 
and  not  let  me  keep  on  going  round  just  like  a 
common  person  ? " 

Irene  laughed  as  if  she  liked  to  have  her  sister 
take  his  praises  in  that  way  rather  than  another. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  173 

"  I  've  got  such  a  stiff,  prim  kind  of  mouth,"  she  said, 
drawing  it  down,  and  then  looking  anxiously  at  it. 

"  I  hope  you  didn't  put  on  that  expression  when 
he  offered  you  the  shaving.  If  you  did,  I  don't  be 
lieve  he  '11  ever  give  you  another  splinter." 

The  severe  mouth  broke  into  a  lovely  laugh,  and 
then  pressed  itself  in  a  kiss  against  Penelope's  cheek. 

"  There  !  Be  done,  you  silly  thing  !  I  'm  not 
going  to  have  you  accepting  me  before  I  've  offered 
myself,  anyway."  She  freed  herself  from  her  sister's 
embrace,  and  ran  from  her  round  the  room. 

Irene  pursued  her,  in  the  need  of  hiding  her  face 
against  her  shoulder  again.  "  O  Pen !  0  Pen  !"  she 
cried. 

The  next  day,  at  the  first  moment  of  finding  her 
self  alone  with  her  eldest  daughter,  Mrs.  Lapham 
asked,  as  if  knowing  that  Penelope  must  have 
already  made  it  subject  of  inquiry  :  "  What  was 
Irene  doing  with  that  shaving  in  her  belt  yester. 
day?" 

"  Oh,  just  some  nonsense  of  hers  with  Mr.  Corey. 
He  gave  it  to  her  at  the  new  house."  Penelope 
did  not  choose  to  look  up  and  meet  her  mother's 
grave  glance. 

"  What  do  you  think  he  meant  by  it  1 " 

Penelope  repeated  Irene's  account  of  the  affair, 
and  her  mother  listened  without  seeming  to  derive 
much  encouragement  from  it. 

"  He  doesn't  seem  like  one  to  flirt  with  her,"  she 
said  at  last.  Then,  after  a  thoughtful  pause : 


174  THE  RISE  OF 

"  Irene  is  as  good  a  girl  as  ever  breathed,  and  she 's 
a  perfect  beauty.  But  I  should  hate  the  day  when 
a  daughter  of  mine  was  married  for  her  beauty." 

"  You  're  safe  as  far  as  I  'm  concerned,  mother." 

Mrs.  Lapham  smiled  ruefully.  "  She  isn't  really 
equal  to  him,  Pen.  I  misdoubted  that  from  the 
first,  and  it 's  been  borne  in  upon  me  more  and  more 
ever  since.  She  hasn't  mind  enough." 

"  I  didn't  know  that  a  man  fell  in  love  with  a 
girl's  intellect,"  said  Penelope  quietly. 

"  Oh  no.  He  hasn't  fallen  in  love  with  Irene  at 
all.  If  he  had,  it  wouldn't  matter  about  the  intel 
lect." 

Penelope  let  the  self-contradiction  pass. 

"  Perhaps  he  has,  after  all." 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  She  pleases  him 
when  he  sees  her.  But  he  doesn't  try  to  see  her." 

"  He  has  no  chance.  You  won't  let  father  bring 
him  here." 

"  He  would  find  excuses  to  come  without  being 
brought,  if  he  wished  to  come,"  said  the  mother. 
"  But  she  isn't  in  his  mind  enough  to  make  him. 
He  goes  away  and  doesn't  think  anything  more 
about  her.  She 's  a  child.  She 's  a  good  child,  and 
I  shall  always  say  it ;  but  she 's  nothing  but  a  child. 
No,  she  's  got  to  forget  him." 

"  Perhaps  that  won't  be  so  easy." 

"  No,  I  presume  not.  And  now  your  father  has 
got  the  notion  in  his  head,  and  he  will  move  heaven 
and  earth  to  bring  it  to  pass.  I  can  see  that  he 's 
always  thinking  about  it" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  175 

"  The  Colonel  has  a  will  of  his  own,"  observed  the 
girl,  rocking  to  and  fro  where  she  sat  looking  at  her 
mother. 

"  I  wish  we  had  never  met  them ! "  cried  Mrs. 
Lapham.  "  I  wish  we  had  never  thought  of  build 
ing  !  I  wish  he  had  kept  away  from  your  father's 
business  ! " 

"  Well,  it 's  too  late  now,  mother,"  said  the  girL 
"  Perhaps  it  isn't  so  bad  as  you  think." 

"  Well,  we  must  stand  it,  anyway,"  said  Mrs. 
Lapham,  with  the  grim  antique  Yankee  submission. 

"  Oh  yes,  we  Ve  got  to  stand  it,"  said  Penelope, 
with  the  quaint  modern  American  fatalism. 


IT  was  late  June,  almost  July,  when  Corey  took 
up  his  life  in  Boston  again,  where  the  summer  slips 
away  so  easily.  If  you  go  out  of  town  early,  it 
seems  a  very  long  summer  when  you  come  back  in 
October;  but  if  you  stay,  it  passes  swiftly,  and, 
seen  foreshortened  in  its  flight,  seems  scarcely  a 
month's  length.  It  has  its  days  of  heat,  when  it  is 
very  hot,  but  for  the  most  part  it  is  cool,  with  baths 
of  the  east  wind  that  seem  to  saturate  the  soul  with 
delicious  freshness.  Then  there  are  stretches  of  grey, 
westerly  weather,  when  the  air  is  full  of  the  senti 
ment  of  early  autumn,  and  the  frying  of  the  grass 
hopper  in  the  blossomed  weed  of  the  vacant  lots  on 
the  Back  Bay  is  intershot  with  the  carol  of  crickets ; 
and  the  yellowing  leaf  on  the  long  slope  of  Mt. 
Vernon  Street  smites  the  sauntering  observer  with 
tender  melancholy.  The  caterpillar,  gorged  with  the 
spoil  of  the  lindens  on  Chestnut,  and  weaving  his 
own  shroud  about  him  in  his  lodgment  on  the  brick 
work,  records  the  passing  of  summer  by  mid-July ; 
and  if  after  that  comes  August,  its  breath  is  thick 
and  short,  and  September  is  upon  the  sojoumer 

176 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  177 

before  he  has   fairly  had  time  to   philosophise  the 
character  of  the  town  out  of  season. 

But  it  must  have  appeared  that  its  most  charac 
teristic  feature  was  the  absence  of  everybody  he 
knew.  This  was  one  of  the  things  that  commended 
Boston  to  Bromfield  Corey  during  the  summer ; 
and  if  his  son  had  any  qualms  about  the  life  he  had 
entered  upon  with  such  vigour,  it  must  have  been  a 
relief  to  him  that  there  was  scarcely  a  soul  left  to 
wonder  or  pity.  By  the  time  people  got  back  to 
town  the  fact  of  his  connection  with  the  mineral 
paint  man  would  be  an  old  story,  heard  afar  off 
with  different  degrees  of  surprise,  and  considered 
with  different  degrees  of  indifference.  A  man 
has  not  reached  the  age  of  twenty -six  in  any 
community  where  he  was  born  and  reared  with 
out  having  had  his  capacity  pretty  wrell  ascertained  ; 
and  in  Boston  the  analysis  is  conducted  with  an 
unsparing  thoroughness  which  may  fitly  impress  the 
un-Bostonian  mind,  darkened  by  the  popular  super 
stition  that  the  Bostonians  blindly  admire  one 
another.  A  man's  qualities  are  sifted  as  closely  in 
Boston  as  they  doubtless  were  in  Florence  or 
Athens;  and,  if  final  mercy  was  shown  in  those 
cities  because  a  man  was,  with  all  his  limitations,  an 
Athenian  or  Florentine,  some  abatement  might  as 
justly  be  made  in  Boston  for  like  reason.  Corey's 
powers  had  been  gauged  in  college,  and  he  had  not 
given  his  world  reason  to  think  very  differently  of 
him  since  he  came  out  of  college.  He  was  rated  as 
an  energetic  fellow,  a  little  indefinite  in  aim,  with 
M 


178  THE  RISE  OF 

the  smallest  amount  of  inspiration  that  can  save  a 
man  from  being  commonplace.  If  he  was  not 
commonplace,  it  was  through  nothing  remarkable  in 
his  mind,  which  was  simply  clear  and  practical,  but 
through  some  combination  of  qualities  of  the  heart 
that  made  men  trust  him,  and  women  call  him 
sweet — a  word  of  theirs  which  conveys  otherwise 
indefinable  excellences.  Some  of  the  more  nervous 
and  excitable  said  that  Tom  Corey  was  as  sweet 
as  he  could  live ;  but  this  perhaps  meant  no  more 
than  the  word  alone.  No  man  ever  had  a  son 
less  like  him  than  Bromfield  Corey.  If  Tom 
Corey  had  ever  said  a  witty  thing,  no  one  could 
remember  it;  and  yet  the  father  had  never  said 
a  witty  thing  to  a  more  sympathetic  listener  than 
his  own  son.  The  clear  mind  which  produced 
nothing  but  practical  results  reflected  everything 
with  charming  lucidity  ;  and  it  must  have  been  this 
which  endeared  Tom  Corey  to  every  one  who  spoke 
ten  words  with  him.  In  a  city  where  people  have 
good  reason  for  liking  to  shine,  a  man  who  did  not 
care  to  shine  must  be  little  short  of  universally 
acceptable  without  any  other  effort  for  popularity ; 
and  those  who  admired  and  enjoyed  Bromfield  Corey 
loved  his  son.  Yet,  when  it  came  to  accounting  for 
Tom  Corey,  as  it  often  did  in  a  community  where 
every  one's  generation  is  known  to  the  remotest  de 
grees  of  cousinship,  they  could  not  trace  his  sweet 
ness  to  his  mother,  for  neither  Anna  Bellingham  nor 
any  of  her  family,  though  they  were  so  many  blocks 
of  Wenham  ice  for  purity  and  rectangularity,  had 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  179 

ever  had  any  such  savour ;  and,  in  fact,  it  was  to  his 
father,  whose  habit  of  talk  wronged  it  in  himself, 
that  they  had  to  turn  for  this  quality  of  the  son's. 
They  traced  to  the  mother  the  traits  of  practicality 
and  common-sense  in  which  he  bordered  upon  the 
commonplace,  and  which,  when  they  had  dwelt  upon 
them,  made  him  seem  hardly  worth  the  close  inquiry 
they  had  given  him. 

While  the  summer  wore  away  he  came  and  went 
methodically  about  his  business,  as  if  it  had  been 
the  business  of  his  life,  sharing  his  father's  bachelor 
liberty  and  solitude,  and  expecting  with  equal 
patience  the  return  of  his  mother  and  sisters  in  the 
autumn.  Once  or  twice  he  found  time  to  run  down 
to  Mt.  Desert  and  see  them  ;  and  then  he  heard  how 
the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  people  were  getting 
in  everywhere,  and  was  given  reason  to  regret  the 
house  at  Nahant  which  he  had  urged  to  be  sold. 
He  came  back  and  applied  himself  to  his  desk  with 
a  devotion  that  was  exemplary  rather  than  neces 
sary  ;  for  Lapham  made  no  difficulty  about  the  brief 
absences  which  he  asked,  and  set  no  term  to  the 
apprenticeship  that  Corey  was  serving  in  the  office 
before  setting  off  upon  that  mission  to  South 
America  in  the  early  winter,  for  which  no  date  had 
yet  been  fixed. 

The  summer  was  a  dull  season  for  the  paint  as 
well  as  for  everything  else.  Till  things  should  brisk 
up,  as  Lapham  said,  in  the  fall,  he  was  letting  the 
new  house  take  a  great  deal  of  his  time.  ./Esthetic 
ideas  had  never  been  intelligibly  presented  to  him 


1 80  THE  RISE  OF 

before,  and  he  found  a  delight  in  apprehending  them 
that  was  very  grateful  to  his  imaginative  architect. 
At  the  beginning,  the  architect  had  foreboded  a 
series  of  mortifying  defeats  and  disastrous  victories 
in  his  encounters  with  his  client ;  but  he  had  never 
had  a  client  who  could  be  more  reasonably  led  on 
from  one  outlay  to  another.  It  appeared  that 
Lapham  required  but  to  understand  or  feel  the 
beautiful  effect  intended,  and  he  was  ready  to  pay 
for  it.  His  bull-headed  pride  was  concerned  in  a 
thing  which  the  architect  made  him  see,  and  then 
he  believed  that  he  had  seen  it  himself,  perhaps  con 
ceived  it.  In  some  measure  the  architect  seemed  to 
share  his  delusion,  and  freely  said  that  Lapham  was 
very  suggestive.  Together  they  blocked  out  win 
dows  here,  and  bricked  them  up  there ;  they  changed 
doors  and  passages ;  pulled  down  cornices  and  re 
placed  them  with  others  of  different  design ;  experi 
mented  with  costly  devices  of  decoration,  and  went 
to  extravagant  lengths  in  novelties  of  finish.  Mrs. 
Lapham,  beginning  with  a  woman's  adventurousness 
in  the  unknown  region,  took  fright  at  the  reckless 
outlay  at  last,  and  refused  to  let  her  husband  pass  a 
certain  limit.  He  tried  to  make  her  believe  that  a  far- 
seeing  economy  dictated  the  expense ;  and  that  if  he 
put  the  money  into  the  house,  he  could  get  it  out  any 
time  by  selling  it.  She  would  not  be  persuaded. 

"I  don't  want  you  should  sell  it.  And  you've 
put  more  money  into  it  now  than  you  '11  ever  get  out 
again,  unless  you  can  find  as  big  a  goose  to  buy  it, 
and  that  isn't  likely.  No,  sir  !  You  just  stop  at  a 


SILAS  LAPHA1I.  181 

hundred  thousand,  and  don't  you  let  him  get  you  a 
cent  beyond.  Why,  you  're  perfectly  bewitched  with 
that  fellow  !  You  've  lost  your  head,  Silas  Lapham, 
and  if  you  don't  look  out  you  '11  lose  your  money  too." 

The  Colonel  laughed  ;  he  liked  her  to  talk  that 
way,  and  promised  he  would  hold  up  a  while. 

"But  there's  no  call  to  feel  anxious,  Pert.  It's 
only  a  question  what  to  do  with  the  money.  I  can 
reinvest  it ;  but  I  never  had  so  much  of  it  to  spend 
before." 

"  Spend  it,  then,"  said  his  wife  ;  "  don't  throw  it 
away  !  And  how  came  you  to  have  so  much  more 
money  than  you  know  what  to  do  with,  Silas 
Lapham  1 "  she  added. 

"Oh,  I've  made  a  very  good  thing  in  stocks 
lately." 

"  In  stocks  1  When  did  you  take  up  gambling 
for  a  living  1 " 

"Gambling?  Stuff!  What  gambling  ?  Who  said 
it  was  gambling  ? " 

"  You  have  ;  many  a  time." 

"  Oh  yes,  buying  and  selling  on  a  margin.  But 
this  was  a  bona  fide  transaction.  I  bought  at  forty- 
three  for  an  investment,  and  I  sold  at  a  hundred  and 
seven ;  and  the  money  passed  both  times." 

"  Well,  you  better  let  stocks  alone,"  said  his  wife, 
with  the  conservatism  of  her  sex.  "  Next  time 
you  '11  buy  at  a  hundred  and  seven  and  sell  at  forty- 
three.  Then  where  '11  you  be  1 " 

"  Left,"  admitted  the  Colonel. 

"You  better  stick  to  paint  a  while  yet." 


182  THE  RISE  OF 

The  Colonel  enjoyed  this  too,  and  laughed  again 
with  the  ease  of  a  man  who  knows  what  he  is  about. 
A  few  days  after  that  he  came  down  to  Nantasket 
with  the  radiant  air  which  he  wore  when  he  had 
done  a  good  thing  in  business  and  wanted  his  wife's 
sympathy.  He  did  not  say  anything  of  what  had 
happened  till  he  was  alone  with  her  in  their  own 
room  ;  but  he  was  very  gay  the  whole  evening,  and 
made  several  jokes  which  Penelope  said  nothing  but 
very  great  prosperity  could  excuse  :  they  all  under 
stood  these  moods  of  his. 

"  Well,  what  is  it,  Silas  1 "  asked  his  wife  when 
the  time  came.  "  Any  more  big-bugs  wanting  to  go 
into  the  mineral  paint  business  with  you  ? " 

"  Something  better  than  that." 

"  I  could  think  of  a  good  many  better  things," 
said  his  wife,  with  a  sigh  of  latent  bitterness. 
"  What 's  this  one  1 " 

"I 've  had  a  visitor." 

"  Who  ? " 

"  Can't  you  guess  ? " 

"  I  don't  want  to  try.     Who  was  it? " 

«'  Rogers." 

Mrs.  Lapham  sat  down  with  her  hands  in  her  lap, 
and  stared  at  the  smile  on  her  husband's  face,  where 
he  sat  facing  her. 

"  I  guess  you  wouldn't  want  to  joke  on  that 
subject,  Si,"  she  said,  a  little  hoarsely,  "and  you 
wouldn't  grin  about  it  unless  you  had  some  good 
news.  I  don't  know  what  the  miracle  is,  but  if 
you  could  tell  quick " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  183 

She  stopped  like  one  who  can  say  no  more. 

"  I  will,  Persis,"  said  her  husband,  and  with  that 
awed  tone  in  which  he  rarely  spoke  of  anything 
but  the  virtues  of  his  paint.  "  He  came  to  borrow 
money  of  me,  and  I  lent  him  it.  That 's  the  short 
of  it.  The  long " 

"  Go  on,"  said  his  wife,  with  gentle  patience. 

"Well,  Pert,  I  was  never  so  much  astonished  in 
my  life  as  I  was  to  see  that  man  come  into  my 
office.  You  might  have  knocked  me  down  with — 
I  don't  know  what." 

"I  don't  wonder.     Go  on  !" 

"  And  he  was  as  much  embarrassed  as  I  was. 
There  we  stood,  gaping  at  each  other,  and  I  hadn't 
hardly  sense  enough  to  ask  him  to  take  a  chair.  I 
don't  know  just  how  we  got  at  it.  And  I  don't  re 
member  just  how  it  was  that  he  said  he  came  to  come 
to  me.  But  he  had  got  hold  of  a  patent  right  that 
he  wanted  to  go  into  on  a  large  scale,  and  there  he 
was  wanting  me  to  supply  him  the  funds." 

"  Go  on  ! "  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  with  her  voice 
further  in  her  throat. 

"  I  never  felt  the  way  you  did  about  Kogers,  but 
I  know  how  you  always  did  feel,  and  I  guess  I  sur 
prised  him  with  my  answer.  He  had  brought  along 
a  lot  of  stock  as  security " 

"  You  didn't  take  it,  Silas  !  "  his  wife  flashed  out. 

"  Yes,  I  did,  though,"  said  Lapham.  rt  You  wait. 
We  settled  our  business,  and  then  we  went  into  the 
old  thing,  from  the  very  start.  And  we  talked  it 
all  over.  And  when  we  got  through  we  shook 


184  THE  RISE  OF 

hands.  "Well,  I  don't  know  when  it's  done  me  so 
much  good  to  shake  hands  with  anybody." 

"  And  you  told  him — you  owned  up  to  him  that 
you  were  in  the  wrong,  Silas  1 " 

"  No,  I  didn't,"  returned  the  Colonel  promptly ; 
"  for  I  wasn't.  And  before  we  got  through,  I  guess 
he  saw  it  the  same  as  I  did." 

"  Oh,  no  matter  !  so  you  had  the  chance  to  'show 
how  you  felt." 

"  But  I  never  felt  that  way,"  persisted  the  Colonel. 
"  I  Ve  lent  him  the  money,  and  I  've  kept  his  stocks. 
And  he  got  what  he  wanted  out  of  me." 

"  Give  him  back  his  stocks  ! " 

"  No,  I  shan't.  Rogers  came  to  borrow.  He 
didn't  come  to  beg.  You  needn't  be  troubled  about 
his  stocks.  They  're  going  to  come  up  in  time  ;  but 
just  now  they're  so  low  down  that  no  bank  would 
take  them  as  security,  and  I  've  got  to  hold  them  till 
they  do  rise.  I  hope  you  're  satisfied  now,  Persis," 
said  her  husband ;  and  he  looked  at  her  with  the 
willingness  to  receive  the  reward  of  a  good  action 
which  we  all  feel  when  we  have  performed  one.  "  I 
lent  him  the  money  you  kept  me  from  spending  on 
the  house." 

"Truly,  Si?  Well,  I'm  satisfied,"  said  Mrs. 
Lapham,  with  a  deep  tremulous  breath.  "The 
Lord  has  been  good  to  you,  Silas,"  she  continued 
solemnly.  "You  may  laugh  if  you  choose,  and  I 
don't  know  as  I  believe  in  his  interfering  a  great 
deal ;  but  I  believe  he 's  interfered  this  time ;  and 
I  tell  you,  Silas,  it  ain't  always  he  gives  people  a 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  185 

chance  to  make  it  up  to  others  in  this  life.  I've 
been  afraid  you  'd  die,  Silas,  before  you  got  the 
chance ;  but  he 's  let  you  live  to  make  it  up  to 
Rogers." 

"  I  'm  glad  to  be  let  live,"  said  Lapham  stubbornly, 
"but  I  hadn't  anything  to  make  up  to  Milton  K. 
Rogers.  And  if  God  has  let  me  live  for  that " 

"  Oh,  say  what  you  please,  Si !  Say  what  you 
please,  now  you  've  done  it !  I  shan't  stop  you. 
You  've  taken  the  one  spot — the  one  speck — off  you 
that  was  ever  there,  and  I  'm  satisfied." 

"There  wan't  ever  any  speck  there,"  Lapham 
held  out,  lapsing  more  and  more  into  his  vernacular; 
"  and  what  I  done  I  done  for  you,  Persis." 

"  And  I  thank  you  for  your  own  soul's  sake,  Silas." 

"  I  guess  my  soul 's  all  right,"  said  Lapham. 

"  And  I  want  you  should  promise  me  one  thing 
more." 

"  Thought  you  said  you  were  satisfied  1 " 

"  I  am.  But  I  want  you  should  promise  me  this : 
that  you  won't  let  anything  tempt  you — anything  ! — 
to  ever  trouble  Rogers  for  that  money  you  lent  him. 
No  matter  what  happens — no  matter  if  you  lose  it 
all.  Do  you  promise  1 " 

"Why,  I  don't  ever  expect  to  press  him  for  it. 
That 's  what  I  said  to  myself  when  I  lent  it  And 
of  course  I  'm  glad  to  have  that  old  trouble  healed 
up.  I  don't  think  I  ever  did  Rogers  any  wrong,  and 
I  never  did  think  so ;  but  if  I  did  do  it — if  I  did — 
I  'm  willing  to  call  it  square,  if  I  never  see  a  cent  of 
my  money  back  again." 


186  THE  RISE  OF 

"Well,  that's  all,"  said  his  wife. 

They  did  not  celebrate  his  reconciliation  with  his 
old  enemy — for  such  they  had  always  felt  him  to 
be  since  he  ceased  to  be  an  ally — by  any  show  of 
joy  or  affection.  It  was  not  in  their  tradition,  as 
stoical  for  the  woman  as  for  the  man,  that  they 
should  kiss  or  embrace  each  other  at  such  a  moment. 
She  was  content  to  have  told  him  that  he  had 
done  his  duty,  -and  he  was  content  with  her  saying 
that.  But  before  she  slept  she  found  words  to  add 
that  she  always  feared  the  selfish  part  he  had  acted 
toward  Rogers  had  weakened  him,  and  left  him  less 
able  to  overcome  any  temptation  that  might  beset 
him  ;  and  that  was  one  reason  why  she  could  never 
be  easy  about  it.  Now  she  should  never  fear  for  him 
again. 

This  time  he  did  not  explicitly  deny  her  forgiving 
impeachment. 

"  Well,  it 's  all  past  and  gone  now,  anyway  ;  and 
I  don't  want  you  should  think  anything  more  about 
it" 

He  was  man  enough  to  take  advantage  of  the  high 
favour  in  which  he  stood  when  he  went  up  to  town, 
and  to  abuse  it  by  bringing  Corey  down  to  supper. 
His  wife  could  not  help  condoning  the  sin  of  dis 
obedience  in  him  at  such  a  time.  Penelope  said 
that  between  the  admiration  she  felt  for  the  Colonel's 
boldness  and  her  mother's  forbearance,  she  was 
hardly  in  a  state  to  entertain  company  that  even 
ing  ;  but  she  did  what  she  could. 

Irene  liked  being  talked  to  better  than  talking, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  187 

and  when  her  sister  was  by  she  was  always,  tacitly 
or  explicitly,  referring  to  her  for  confirmation  of 
what  she  said.  She  was  content  to  sit  and  look 
pretty  as  she  looked  at  the  young  man  and  listened 
to  her  sister's  drolling.  She  laughed  and  kept 
glancing  at  Corey  to  make  sure  that  he  was  under 
standing  her.  When  they  went  out  on  the  veranda 
to  see  the  moon  on  the  water,  Penelope  led  the 
way  and  Irene  followed. 

They  did  not  look  at  the  moonlight  long.  The 
young  man  perched  on  the  rail  of  the  veranda,  and 
Irene  took  one  of  the  red-painted  rocking-chairs  where 
she  could  conveniently  look  at  him  and  at  her  sister, 
who  sat  leaning  forward  lazily  and  running  on, 
as  the  phrase  is.  That  low,  crooning  note  of  hers 
was  delicious ;  her  face,  glimpsed  now  and  then  in 
the  moonlight  as  she  turned  it  or  lifted  it  a  little, 
had  a  fascination  which  kept  his  eye.  Her  talk  was 
very  unliterary,  and  its  effect  seemed  hardly  con 
scious.  She  was  far  from  epigram  in  her  funning. 
She  told  of  this  trifle  and  that ;  she  sketched  the 
characters  and  looks  of  people  who  had  interested 
her,  and  nothing  seemed  to  have  escaped  her  notice  ; 
she  mimicked  a  little,  but  not  much  ;  she  suggested, 
and  then  the  affair  represented  itself  as  if  without 
her  agency.  She  did  not  laugh ;  when  Corey  stopped 
she  made  a  soft  cluck  in  her  throat,  as  if  she  liked 
his  being  amused,  and  went  on  again. 

The  Colonel,  left  alone  with  his  wife  for  the  first 
time  since  he  had  come  from  town,  made  haste  to 
take  the  word.  "  Well,  Pert,  I  've  arranged  the 


188  THE  RISE  OF 

whole  thing  with  Rogers,  and  I  hope  you'll  be 
satisfied  to  know  that  he  owes  me  twenty  thousand 
dollars,  and  that  I  Ve  got  security  from  him  to  the 
amount  of  a  fourth  of  that,  if  I  was  to  force  his 
stocks  to  a  sale." 

"  How  came  he  to  come  down  with  you  1 "  asked 
Mrs.  Lapham. 

"Who?   Rogers?" 

"  Mr.  Corey." 

"  Corey  ?  Oh ! "  said  Lapham,  affecting  not  to 
have  thought  she  could  mean  Corey.  "  He  pro 
posed  it" 

"  Likely ! "  jeered  his  wife,  but  with  perfect 
amiability. 

"  It 's  so,"  protested  the  Colonel.  "  We  got  talking 
about  a  matter  just  before  I  left,  and  he  walked  down 
to  the  boat  with  me ;  and  then  he  said  if  I  didn't 
mind  he  guessed  he  'd  come  along  down  and  go  back 
on  the  return  boat.  Of  course  I  couldn't  let  him  do 
that." 

"  It 's  well  for  you  you  couldn't" 

"  And  I  couldn't  do  less  than  bring  him  here  to 
tea." 

"  Oh,  certainly  not." 

"But  he  ain't  going  to  stay  the  night — unless," 
faltered  Lapham,  "  you  want  him  to." 

"  Oh,  of  course,  /  want  him  to  !  I  guess  he  '11 
stay,  probably." 

"  Well,  you  know  how  crowded  that  last  boat 
always  is,  and  he  can't  get  any  other  now." 

Mrs.  Lapham  laughed  at  the  simple  wile.    "  I  hope 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  189 

you  '11  be  just  as  well  satisfied,  Si,  if  it  turns  out  he 
doesn't  want  Irene  after  all." 

"  Pshaw,  Persis  !  What  are  you  always  bringing 
that  up  for  ? "  pleaded  the  Colonel.  Then  he  fell 
silent,  and  presently  his  rude,  strong  face  was  clouded 
with  an  unconscious  frown. 

"  There  ! "  cried  his  wife,  startling  him  from  his 
abstraction.  "  I  see  how  you  Jd  feel ;  and  I  hope 
that  you  Jll  remember  who  you  Ve  got  to  blame." 

"  I'll  risk  it,"  said  Lapham,  with  the  confidence  of 
a  man  used  to  success. 

From  the  veranda  the  sound  of  Penelope's  lazy 
tone  came  through  the  closed  windows,  with  joyous 
laughter  from  Irene  and  peals  from  Corey. 

"Listen  to  that !  "  said  her  father  within,  swelling 
up  with  inexpressible  satisfaction.  "  That  girl  can 
talk  for  twenty,  right  straight  along.  She  's  better 
than  a  circus  any  day.  I  wonder  what  she 's  up  to 
now." 

"  Oh,  she 's  probably  getting  off  some  of  those  yarns 
of  hers,  or  telling  about  some  people.  She  can't  step 
out  of  the  house  without  coming  back  with  more 
things  to  talk  about  than  most  folks  would  bring 
back  from  Japan.  There  ain't  a  ridiculous  person 
she's  ever  seen  but  what  she's  got  something  from 
them  to  make  you  laugh  at ;  and  I  don't  believe  we  've 
ever  had  anybody  in  the  house  since  the  girl  could 
talk  that  she  hain't  got  some  saying  from,  or  some 
trick  that  '11  paint  'em  out  so  't  you  can  see  'em  and 
hear  'em.  Sometimes  I  want  to  stop  her  ;  but  when 
she  gets  into  one  of  her  gales  there  ain't  any  standing 


190  THE  RISE  OF 

up  against  her.  I  guess  it 's  lucky  for  Irene  that 
she  's  got  Pen  there  to  help  entertain  her  company. 
I  can't  ever  feel  down  where  Pen  is." 

"That's  so,"  said  the  Colonel.  "And  I  guess 
she 's  got  about  as  much  culture  as  any  of  them. 
Don't  you  1 " 

"  She  reads  a  great  deal,"  admitted  her  mother. 
"  She  seems  to  be  at  it  the  whole  while.  I  don't 
want  she  should  injure  her  health,  and  sometimes  I 
feel  like  snatchin'  the  books  away  from  her.  I  don't 
know  as  it 's  good  for  a  girl  to  read  so  much,  anyway, 
especially  novels.  I  don't  want  she  should  get 
notions." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  Pen  '11  know  how  to  take  care  of 
herself,"  said  Lapham. 

"  She 's  got  sense  enough.  But  she  ain't  so 
practical  as  Irene.  She  's  more  up  in  the  clouds — 
more  of  what  you  may  call  a  dreamer.  Irene 's  wide 
awake  every  minute  ;  and  I  declare,  any  one  to  see 
these  two  together  when  there  Js  anything  to  be  done, 
or  any  lead  to  be  taken,  would  say  Irene  was  the 
oldest,  nine  times  out  of  ten.  It 's  only  when  they 
get  to  talking  that  you  can  see  Pen 's  got  twice  as 
much  brains." 

"  Well,"  said  Lapham,  tacitly  granting  this 
point,  and  leaning  back  in  his  chair  in  supreme 
content.  "  Did  you  ever  see  much  nicer  girls  any 
where  ? " 

His  wife  laughed  at  his  pride.  "I  presume 
they  're  as  much  swans  as  anybody's  geese." 

"  No  ;  but  honestly,  now  !  " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  191 

"  Oh,  they  '11  do ;  but  don't  you  be  silly,  if  you 
can  help  it,  Si." 

The  young  people  came  in,  and  Corey  said  it  was 
time  for  his  boat.  Mrs.  Lapham  pressed  him  to 
stay,  but  he  persisted,  and  he  would  not  let  the 
Colonel  send  him  to  the  boat ;  he  said  he  would 
rather  walk.  Outside,  he  pushed  along  toward  the 
boat,  which  presently  he  could  see  lying  at  her  land 
ing  in  the  bay,  across  the  sandy  tract  to  the  left  of 
the  hotels.  From  time  to  time  he  almost  stopped  in 
his  rapid  walk,  as  a  man  does  whose  mind  is  in  a 
pleasant  tumult ;  and  then  he  went  forward  at  a 
swifter  pace. 

"  She 's  charming ! "  he  said,  and  he  thought  he 
had  spoken  aloud.  He  found  himself  floundering 
about  in  the  deep  sand,  wide  of  the  path  ;  he  got 
back  to  it,  and  reached  the  boat  just  before  she 
started.  The  clerk  came  to  take  his  fare,  and  Corey 
looked  radiantly  up  at  him  in  his  lantern-light,  with 
a  smile  that  he  must  have  been  wearing  a  long 
time ;  his  cheek  was  stiff  with  it.  Once  some 
people  who  stood  near  him  edged  suddenly  and  fear 
fully  away,  and  then  he  suspected  himself  of  having 
laughed  outright. 


XL 


COREY  put  off  his  set  smile  with  the  help  of  a 
frown,  of  which  he  first  became  aware  after  reaching 
home,  when  his  father  asked — 

"Anything  gone  wrong  with  your  department  of 
the  fine  arts  to-day,  Tom  ?" 

"Oh  no — no,  sir,"  said  the  son,  instantly  reliev 
ing  his  brows  from  the  strain  upon  them,  and 
beaming  again.  "  But  I  was  thinking  whether  you 
were  not  perhaps  right  in  your  impression  that  it 
might  be  well  for  you  to  make  Colonel  Lapham's 
acquaintance  before  a  great  while." 

"  Has  he  been  suggesting  it  in  any  way  ? "  asked 
Bromfield  Corey,  laying  aside  his  book  and  taking 
his  lean  knee  between  his  clasped  hands. 

"Oh,  not  at  all!"  the  young  man  hastened  to 
reply.  "I  was  merely  thinking  whether  it  might 
not  begin  to  seem  intentional,  your  not  doing  it" 

"Well,  Tom,  you  know  I  have  been  leaving  it 
altogether  to  you " 

"  Oh,  I  understand,  of  course,  and  I  didn't  mean 
to  urge  anything  of  the  kind " 

"  You  are  so  very  much  more  of  a  Bostonian  than 

192 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHA&I.  193 

I  am,  you  know,  that  I  Ve  been  waiting  your  motion 
in  entire  confidence  that  you  would  know  just  what 
to  do,  and  when  to  do  it.  If  I  had  been  left  quite 
to  my  own  lawless  impulses,  I  think  I  should  have 
called  upon  your  padrone  at  once.  It  seems  to  me 
that  my  father  would  have  found  some  way  of  show 
ing  that  he  expected  as  much  as  that  from  people 
placed  in  the  relation  to  him  that  we  hold  to  Colonel 
Lapham." 

"Do  you  think  so  V  asked  the  young  man. 

"  Yes.  But  you  know  I  don't  pretend  to  be  an 
authority  in  such  matters.  As  far  as  they  go,  I 
am  always  in  the  hands  of  your  mother  and  you 
children." 

"  I  'm  very  sorry,  sir.  I  had  no  idea  I  was  over 
ruling  your  judgment.  I  only  wanted  to  spare  you  a 
formality  that  didn't  seem  quite  a  necessity  yet.  I  'm 
very  sorry,"  he  said  again,  and  this  time  with  more 
comprehensive  regret.  "  I  shouldn't  like  to  have 
seemed  remiss  with  a  man  who  has  been  so  con 
siderate  of  me.  They  are  all  very  good-natured." 

"  I  dare  say,"  said  Bromfield  Corey,  with  the 
satisfaction  which  no  elder  can  help  feeling  in  dis 
abling  the  judgment  of  a  younger  man,  "  that  it 
won't  be  too  late  if  I  go  down  to  your  office  with 
you  to-morrow." 

"  No,  no.  I  didn't  imagine  your  doin<r  it  at  once, 
sir." 

"  Ah,  but  nothing  can  prevent  me  from  doing  a 
thing  when  once  I  take  the  bit  in  my  teeth,"  said 
the  father,  with  the  pleasure  which  men  of  weak  will 

N 


194  THE  RISE  OF 

sometimes  take  in  recognising  their  weakness. 
"  How  does  their  new  house  get  on  1" 

"I  believe  they  expect  to  be  in  it  before  New 
Year." 

"  Will  they  be  a  great  addition  to  society  ? "  asked 
Bromfield  Corey,  with  unimpeachable  seriousness. 

"I  don't  quite  know  what  you  mean,"  returned 
the  son,  a  little  uneasily. 

"Ah,  I  see  that  you  do,  Tom." 

"  No  one  can  help  feeling  that  they  are  all  people 
of  good  sense  and — right  ideas." 

"Oh,  that  won't  do.  If  society  took  in  all  the 
people  of  right  ideas  and  good  sense,  it  would  expand 
beyond  the  calling  capacity  of  its  most  active 
members.  Even  your  mother's  social  conscientious 
ness  could  not  compass  it.  Society  is  a  very  different 
sort  of  thing  from  good  sense  and  right  ideas.  It  is 
based  upon  them,  of  course,  but  the  airy,  graceful, 
winning  superstructure  which  we  all  know  demands 
different  qualities.  Have  your  friends  got  these 
qualities, — which  may  be  felt,  but  not  defined  ?" 

The  son  laughed.  "  To  tell  you  the  truth,  sir,  I 
don't  think  they  have  the  most  elemental  ideas  of 
society,  as  we  understand  it  I  don't  believe  Mrs. 
Lapham  ever  gave  a  dinner." 

"And  with  all  that  money  !"  sighed  the  father. 

"  I  don't  believe  they  have  the  habit  of  wine  at 
table.  I  suspect  that  when  they  don't  drink  tea  and 
coffee  with  their  dinner,  they  drink  ice-water." 

"  Horrible  1"  said  Bromfield  Corey. 

"It  appears  to  me  that  this  defines  them." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  195 

"  Oh  yes.  There  are  people  who  give  dinners, 
and  who  are  not  cognoscible.  But  people  who  have 
never  yet  given  a  dinner,  how  is  society  to  assimilate 
them  V 

"It  digests  a  great  many  people,"  suggested  the 
young  man. 

"  Yes ;  but  they  have  always  brought  some  sort 
of  sauce  piquante  with  them.  Now,  as  I  under 
stand  you,  these  friends  of  yours  have  no  such 
sauce." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  about  that !"  cried  the  son. 

"  Oh,  rude,  native  flavours,  I  dare  say.  But  that 
isn't  what  I  mean.  Well,  then,  they  must  spend. 
There  is  no  other  way  for  them  to  win  their  way  to 
general  regard.  We  must  have  the  Colonel  elected 
to  the  Ten  O'clock  Club,  and  he  must  put  himself 
down  in  the  list  of  those  willing  to  entertain.  Any 
one  can  manage  a  large  supper.  Yes,  I  see  a  gleam 
of  hope  for  him  in  that  direction." 

In  the  morning  Bromfield  Corey  asked  his  son 
whether  he  should  find  Lapham  at  his  place  as  early 
as  eleven. 

"  I  think  you  might  find  him  even  earlier.  I  Ve 
never  been  there  before  him.  I  doubt  if  the  porter 
is  there  much  sooner." 

"Well,  suppose  I  go  with  you,  then  1" 

"  Why,  if  you  like,  sir,"  said  the  son,  with  some 
deprecation. 

"  Oh,  the  question  is,  will  he  like  ?" 

"I  think  he  will,  sir;"  and  the  father  could  see 
that  his  son  was  very  much  pleased. 


196  THE  RISE  OF 

Lapham  was  rending  an  impatient  course  through 
the  morning's  news  when  they  appeared  at  the  door 
of  his  inner  room.  He  looked  up  from  the  news 
paper  spread  on  the  desk  before  him,  and  then  he 
stood  up,  making  an  indifferent  feint  of  not  knowing 
that  he  knew  Bromfield  Corey  by  sight. 

"  Good  morning,  Colonel  Lapham,"  said  the  son, 
and  Lapham  waited  for  him  to  say  further,  "  I  wish 
to  introduce  my  father." 

Then  he  answered,  "  Good  morning,"  and  added 
rather  sternly  for  the  elder  Corey,  "  How  do  you  do, 
sir?  Will  you  take  a  chair  1"  and  he  pushed  him  one. 

They  shook  hands  and  sat  down,  and  Lapham 
said  to  his  subordinate,  "  Have  a  seat ; "  but  young 
Corey  remained  standing,  watching  them  in  their 
observance  of  each  other  with  an  amusement  which 
was  a  little  uneasy.  Lapham  made  his  visitor  speak 
first  by  waiting  for  him  to  do  so. 

"  I  'm  glad  to  make  your  acquaintance,  Colonel 
Lapham,  and  I  ought  to  have  come  sooner  to  do  so. 
My  father  in  your  place  would  have  expected  it  of 
a  man  in  my  place  at  once,  I  believe.  But  I  can't 
feel  myself  altogether  a  stranger  as  it  is.  I  hope 
Mrs.  Lapham  is  well  ?  And  your  daughter  1 " 

"Thank  you/'  said  Lapham,  "they're  quite  well." 

"  They  were  very  kind  to  my  wife " 

*  Oh,  that  was  nothing !"  cried  Lapham.  "  There 's 
nothing  Mrs.  Lapham  likes  better  than  a  chance  of 
that  sort.  Mrs.  Corey  and  the  young  ladies  well  1" 

11  Very  well,  when  I  heard  from  them.  They  're 
out  of  town." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  197 

"Yes,  so  I  understood,"  said  Lapham,  with  a  nod 
toward  the  son.  "I  believe  Mr.  Corey,  here,  told 
Mrs.  Lapham."  He  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  stiffly 
resolute  to  show  that  he  was  not  incommoded  by 
the  exchange  of  these  civilities. 

"  Yes,"  said  Bromfield  Corey.  "  Tom  has  had 
the  pleasure  which  I  hope  for  of  seeing  you  all.  I 
hope  you  're  able  to  make  him  useful  to  you  here  ?" 
Corey  looked  round  Lapham's  room  vaguely,  and 
then  out  at  the  clerks  in  their  railed  enclosure, 
where  his  eye  finally  rested  on  an  extremely  pretty 
girl,  who  was  operating  a  type-writer. 

"Well,  sir,"  replied  Lapham,  softening  for  the 
first  time  with  this  approach  to  business,  "  I  guess 
it  will  be  our  own  fault  if  we  don't.  By  the  way, 
Corey,"  he  added,  to  the  younger  man,  as  he 
gathered  up  some  letters  from  his  desk,  "here's 
something  in  your  line.  Spanish  or  French,  I 
guess." 

"  I  '11  run  them  over,"  said  Corey,  taking  them  to 
his  desk. 

His  father  made  an  offer  to  rise. 

"  Don't  go,"  said  Lapham,  gesturing  him  down 
again.  "  I  just  wanted  to  get  him  away  a  minute. 
I  don't  care  to  say  it  to  his  face, — I  don't  like  the 
principle, — but  since  you  ask  me  about  it,  I  'd  just 
as  lief  say  that  I  Ve  never  had  any  young  man  take 
hold  here  equal  to  your  son.  I  don't  know  as  you 
care " 

"  You  make  me  very  happy,"  said  Bromfield 
Corey.  "  Very  happy  indeed.  I  Ve  always  had 


198  THE  RISE  OF 

the  idea  that  there  was  something  in  my  son,  if  he 
could  only  find  the  way  to  work  it  out.  And  he 
seems  to  have  gone  into  your  business  for  the  love 
of  it." 

"  He  went  to  work  in  the  right  way,  sir !  He 
told  me  about  it.  He  looked  into  it  And  that 
paint  is  a  thing  that  will  bear  looking  into." 

"Oh  yes.  You  might  think  he  had  invented 
it,  if  you  heard  him  celebrating  it." 

"  Is  that  so  V  demanded  Lapham,  pleased  through 
and  through.  "  Well,  there  ain't  any  other  way. 
You  've  got  to  believe  in  a  thing  before  you  can  put 
any  heart  in  it.  Why,  I  had  a  partner  in  this  thing 
once,  along  back  just  after  the  war,  and  he  used  to 
be  always  wanting  to  tinker  with  something  else. 
*  Why,'  says  I,  '  you  've  got  the  best  thing  in  God's 
universe  now.  Why  ain't  you  satisfied  ?''  I  had  to 
get  rid  of  him  at  last.  I  stuck  to  my  paint,  and 
that  fellow 's  drifted  round  pretty  much  all  over  the 
whole  country,  whittling  his  capital  down  all  the 
while,  till  here  the  other  day  I  had  to  lend  him 
some  money  to  start  him  new.  No,  sir,  you  've  got 
to  believe  in  a  thing.  And  I  believe  in  your  son. 
And  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that,  so  far  as  he's 
gone,  he 's  a  success." 

"  That 's  very  kind  of  you." 

"No  kindness  about  it.  As  I  was  saying  the 
other  day  to  a  friend  of  mine,  I've  had  many  a 
fellow  right  out  of  the  street  that  had  to  work  hard 
all  his  life,  and  didn't  begin  to  take  hold  like  this 
son  of  yours." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  199 

Lapham  expanded  with  profound  self-satisfaction. 
As  he  probably  conceived  it,  he  had  succeeded  in 
praising,  in  a  perfectly  casual  way,  the  supreme 
excellence  of  his  paint,  and  his  own  sagacity  and 
benevolence;  and  here  he  was  sitting  face  to  face 
with  Bromfield  Corey,  praising  his  son  to  him,  and 
receiving  his  grateful  acknowledgments  as  if  he  were 
the  father  of  some  office-boy  whom  Lapham  had 
given  a  place  half  but  of  charity. 

"  Yes,  sir,  when  your  son  proposed  to  take  hold 
here,  I  didn't  have  much  faith  in  his  ideas,  that 's 
the  truth.  But  I  had  faith  in  him,  and  I  saw  that 
he  meant  business  from  the  start.  I  could  see  it 
was  born  in  him.  Any  one  could." 

"  I  'm  afraid  he  didn't  inherit  it  directly  from  me," 
said  Bromfield  Corey;  "but  it's  in  the  blood,  on 
both  sides." 

"Well,  sir,  we  can't  help  those  things,"  said 
Lapham  compassionately.  "Some  of  us  have  got 
it,  and  some  of  us  haven't  The  idea  is  to  make  the 
most  of  what  we  have  got." 

"  Oh  yes ;  that  is  the  idea.     By  all  means." 

"  And  you  can't  ever  tell  what 's  in  you  till  you 
try.  Why,  when  I  started  this  thing,  I  didn't  more 
than  half  understand  my  own  strength.  I  wouldn't 
have  said,  looking  back,  that  I  could  have  stood  tho 
wear  and  tear  of  what  I've  been  through.  But  I 
developed  as  I  went  along.  It 's  just  like  exercising 
your  muscles  in  a  gymnasium.  You  can  lift  twice 
or  three  times  as  much  after  you  Ve  been  in  training 
a  month  as  you  could  before.  And  I  can  see  that 


200  THE  RISE  OF 

it 's  going  to  be  just  so  with  your  son.  His  going 
through  college  won't  hurt  him, — he'll  soon  slough 
all  that  off, — and  his  bringing  up  won't ;  don't  be 
anxious  about  it.  I  noticed  in  the  army  that  some  of 
the  fellows  that  had  the  most  go-ahead  were  fellows 
that  hadn't  ever  had  much  more  to  do  than  girls 
before  the  war  broke  out.  Your  son  will  get  along." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Bromfield  Corey,  and  smiled — 
whether  because  his  spirit  was  safe  in  the  humility 
he  sometimes  boasted,  or  because  it  was  triply  armed 
in  pride  against  anything  the  Colonel's  kindness 
could  do. 

"He'll  get  along.  He's  a  good  business  man, 
and  he's  a  fine  fellow.  Must  you  go  T'  asked  Lap- 
ham,  as  Bromfield  Corey  now  rose  more  resolutely. 
"  Well,  glad  to  see  you.  It  was  natural  you  should 
want  to  come  and  see  what  he  was  about,  and  I  'm 
glad  you  did.  I  should  have  felt  just  so  about  it. 
Here  is  some  of  our  stuff,"  he  said,  pointing  out  the 
various  packages  in  his  office,  including  the  Persis 
Brand. 

"Ah,  that's  very  nice,  very  nice  indeed,"  said  his 
visitor.  "  That  colour  through  the  jar — very  rich — 
delicious.  Is  Persis  Brand  a  name  1" 

Lapham  blushed. 

"Well,  Persis  is.  I  don't  know  as  you  saw  an 
interview  that  fellow  published  in  the  Events 
a  while  back  ? " 

"  What  is  the  Events  ?  " 

"Well,  it 's  that  new  paper  Witherby 's  started." 

"No,"  said  Bromfield  Corey,  "I  haven't  seen  it. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  201 

I  read  The  Daily"  he  explained ;  by  which  he  meant 
The  Daily  Advertiser,  the  only  daily  there  is  in  the 
old-fashioned  Boston  ian  sense. 

"  He  put  a  lot  of  stuff  in  my  mouth  that  I  never 
said,""  resumed  Lapham  ;  "  but  that 's  neither  here 
nor  there,  so  long  as  you  haven't  seen  it.  Here  's 
the  department  your  son 's  in,"  and  he  showed  him 
the  foreign  labels.  Then  he  took  him  out  into  the 
warehouse  to  see  the  large  packages.  At  the  head 
of  the  stairs,  where  his  guest  stopped  to  nod  to  his 
son  and  say  "  Good-bye,  Tom,"  Lapham  insisted 
upon  going  down  to  the  lower  door  with  him. 
"  Well,  call  again,"  he  said  in  hospitable  dismissal. 
"  I  shall  always  be  glad  to  see  you.  There  ain't  a 
great  deal  doing  at  this  season."  Bromfield  Corey 
thanked  him,  and  let  his  hand  remain  perforce  in 
Lapham's  lingering  grasp.  "  If  you  ever  like  to  ride 
after  a  good  horse "  the  Colonel  began. 

"  Oh,  no,  no,  no ;  thank  you !  The  better  the 
horse,  the  more  I  should  be  scared.  Tom  has  told 
me  of  your  driving  i" 

"Ha,  ha,  ha  I"  laughed  the  Colonel.  "Well! 
every  one  to  his  taste.  Well,  good  morning,  sir!" 
and  he  suffered  him  to  go. 

"Who  is  the  old  man  blowing  to  this  morning  1" 
asked  Walker,  the  book-keeper,  making  an  errand 
to  Corey's  desk. 

"My  father." 

"  Oh  !  That  your  father  1  I  thought  he  must  be 
one  of  your  Italian  correspondents  that  you  'd  been 
showing  round,  or  Spanish." 


202  THE  RISE  OF 

In  fact,  as  Bromfield  Corey  found  his  way  at  his 
leisurely  pace  up  through  the  streets  on  which  the 
prosperity  of  his  native  city  was  founded,  hardly 
any  figure  could  have  looked  more  alien  to  its  life. 
He  glanced  up  and  down  the  fa9ades  and  through 
the  crooked  vistas  like  a  stranger,  and  the  swarthy 
fruiterer  of  whom  he  bought  an  apple,  apparently 
for  the  pleasure  of  holding  it  in  his  hand,  was  not 
surprised  that  the  purchase  should  be  transacted  in 
his  own  tongue. 

Lapham  walked  back  through  the  outer  office  to  his 
own  room  without  looking  at  Corey,  and  during  the 
day  he  spoke  to  him  only  of  business  matters.  That 
must  have  been  his  way  of  letting  Corey  see  that 
he  was  not  overcome  by  the  honour  of  his  father's 
visit.  But  he  presented  himself  at  Nantasket  with 
the  event  so  perceptibly  on  his  mind  that  his  wife 
asked :  "  Well,  Silas,  has  Rogers  been  borrowing 
any  more  money  of  you  ?  I  don't  want  you  should 
let  that  thing  go  too  far.  You  've  done  enough." 

"  You  needn't  be  afraid.  I  Ve  seen  the  last  of 
Rogers  for  one  while."  He  hesitated,  to  give  the 
fact  an  effect  of  no  importance.  "  Corey's  father 
called  this  morning." 

"  Did  he  ?"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  willing  to  humour 
his  feint  of  indifference.  "  Did  he  want  to  borrow 
some  money  too  1 " 

"  Not  as  I  understood."  Lapham  was  smoking  at 
great  ease,  and  his  wife  had  some  crocheting  on  the 
other  side  of  the  lamp  from  him. 

The  girls  were  on  the  piazza  looking  at  the  moon 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  203 

on  the  water  again.  "  There 's  no  man  in  it  to 
night,"  Penelope  said,  and  Irene  laughed  forlornly. 

"  What  did  he  want,  then  1"  asked  Mrs.  Lapham. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  Seemed  to  be  just  a  friendly 
call  Said  he  ought  to  have  come  before." 

Mrs.  Lapham  was  silent  a  while.  Then  she  said  : 
"  Well,  I  hope  you  're  satisfied  now." 

Lapham  rejected  the  sympathy  too  openly  offered. 
"I  don't  know  about  being  satisfied.  I  wan't  in 
any  hurry  to  see  him." 

His  wife  permitted  him  this  pretence  also. 
"  What  sort  of  a  person  is  he,  anyway  1" 

"  Well,  not  much  like  his  son.  There 's  no  sort 
of  business  about  him.  I  don't  know  just  how  you  'd 
describe  him.  He 's  tall ;  and  he 's  got  white  hair 
and  a  moustache  ;  and  his  fingers  are  very  long  and 
limber.  I  couldn't  help  noticing  them  as  he  sat  there 
with  his  hands  on  the  top  of  his  cane.  Didn't  seem 
to  be  dressed  very  much,  and  acted  just  like  anybody. 
Didn't  talk  much.  Guess  I  did  most  of  the  talking. 
Said  he  was  glad  I  seemed  to  be  getting  along  so  well 
with  his  son.  He  asked  after  you  and  Irene  ;  and  he 
said  he  couldn't  feel  just  like  a  stranger.  Said  you 
had  been  very  kind  to  his  wife.  Of  course  I  turned  it 
off.  Yes,"  said  Lapham  thoughtfully,  with  his  hands 
resting  on  his  knees,  and  his  cigar  between  the 
fingers  of  his  left  hand,  "  I  guess  he  meant  to  do 
the  right  thing,  every  way.  Don't  know  as  I  ever 
saw  a  much  pleasanter  man.  Dunno  but  what  he 's 
about  the  pleasantest  man  I  ever  did  see."  He  was 
not  letting  his  wife  see  in  his  averted  face  the  struggle 


204  THE  RISE  OF 

that  revealed  itself  there — the  struggle  of  stalwart 
achievement  not  to  feel  flattered  at  the  notice  of  sterile 
elegance,  not  to  be  sneakingly  glad  of  its  amiability, 
but  to  stand  up  and  look  at  it  with  eyes  on  the  same 
level.  God,  who  made  us  so  much  like  himself,  but 
out  of  the  dust,  alone  knows  when  that  struggle  will 
end.  The  time  had  been  when  Lapham  could  not 
have  imagined  any  worldly  splendour  which  his 
dollars  could  not  buy  if  he  chose  to  spend  them  for 
it ;  but  his  wife's  half  discoveries,  taking  form  again 
in  his  ignorance  of  the  world,  filled  him  with  help 
less  misgiving.  A  cloudy  vision  of  something  un- 
purchasable,  where  he  had  supposed  there  was 
nothing,  had  cowed  him  in  spite  of  the  burly  resist 
ance  of  his  pride. 

"  I  don't  see  why  he  shouldn't  be  pleasant,"  said 
Mrs.  Lapham.  "  He  'a  never  done  anything  else." 

Lapham  looked  up  consciously,  with  an  uneasy 
laugh.  "  Pshaw,  Persis  !  you  never  forget  any 
thing  r 

"  Oh,  I  Ve  got  more  than  that  to  remember.  I 
suppose  you  asked  him  to  ride  after  the  mare  1" 

"Well,"  said  Lapham,  reddening  guiltily,  "he 
said  he  was  afraid  of  a  good  horse." 

"  Then,  of  course,  you  hadn't  asked  him."  Mrs. 
Lapham  crocheted  in  silence,  and  her  husband  leaned 
back  in  his  chair  and  smoked. 

At  last  he  said,  "  I  'm  going  to  push  that  house 
forward.  They  're  loafing  on  it.  There 's  no  reason 
why  we  shouldn't  be  in  it  by  Thanksgiving.  I  don't 
believe  in  moving  in  the  dead  of  winter." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  205 

"  We  can  wait  till  spring.  We  're  very  comfort 
able  in  the  old  place,"  answered  his  wife.  Then  she 
broke  out  on  him  :  "  What  are  you  in  such  a  hurry 
to  get  into  that  house  for  ?  Do  you  want  to  invite 
the  Corey s  to  a  house-warming  1" 

Lapham  looked  at  her  without  speaking. 

"  Don't  you  suppose  I  can  see  through  you  1  I 
declare,  Silas  Lapham,  if  I  didn't  know  different,  I 
should  say  you  were  about  the  biggest  fool  !  Don't  you 
know  anything  ?  Don't  you  know  that  it  wouldn't 
do  to  ask  those  people  to  our  house  before  they  've 
asked  us  to  theirs  1  They  'd  laugh  in  our  faces  !" 

"  I  don't  believe  they  'd  laugh  in  our  faces. 
What 's  the  difference  between  our  asking  them  and 
their  asking  us  1 "  demanded  the  Colonel  sulkily. 

"  Oh,  well !     If  you  don't  see  !" 

"  Well,  I  don't  see.  But  I  don't  want  to  ask  them 
to  the  house.  I  suppose,  if  I  want  to,  I  can  invite 
him  down  to  a  fish  dinner  at  Taft's." 

Mrs.  Lapham  fell  back  in  her  chair,  and  let  her 
work  drop  in  her  lap  with  that  "  Tckk  !"  in  which 
her  sex  knows  how  to  express  utter  contempt  and 
despair. 

"  What 's  the  matter  1 " 

"  Well,  if  you  do  such  a  thing,  Silas,  I  '11  never 
speak  to  you  again  !  It 's  no  use  !  It 's  no  use  !  I 
did  think,  after  you  'd  behaved  so  well  about  Rogers, 
I  might  trust  you  a  little.  But  I  see  I  can't.  I 
presume  as  long  as  you  live  you  '11  have  to  be  nosed 
about  like  a  perfect — /  don't  know  what !" 

"  What  are  you  making  such  a  fuss  about  ?"  de- 


206  THE  RISE  OF 

mantled  Lapham,  terribly  crest-fallen,  but  trying  to 
pluck  up  a  spirit.  "  I  haven't  done  anything  yet. 
I  can't  ask  your  advice  about  anything  any  more 
without  having  you  fly  out.  Confound  it !  I  shall 
do  as  I  please  after  this." 

But  as  if  he  could  not  endure  that  contemptuous 
atmosphere,  he  got  up,  and  his  wife  heard  him  in 
the  dining-room  pouring  himself  out  a  glass  of  ice- 
water,  and  then  heard  him  mount  the  stairs  to  their 
room,  and  slam  its  door  after  him. 

"  Do  you  know  what  your  father 's  wanting  to  do 
now  ?"  Mrs.  Lapham  asked  her  eldest  daughter, 
who  lounged  into  the  parlour  a  moment  with  her 
wrap  stringing  from  her  arm,  while  the  younger 
went  straight  to  bed.  "He  wants  to  invite  Mr. 
Corey's  father  to  a  fish  dinner  at  Taft's  !" 

Penelope  was  yawning  with  her  hand  on  her 
mouth  ;  she  stopped,  and,  with  a  laugh  of  amused 
expectance,  sank  into  a  chair,  her  shoulders  shrugged 
forward. 

"  Why  !  what  in  the  world  has  put  the  Colonel 
up  to  that  1" 

"  Put  him  up  to  it !  There 's  that  fellow,  Avho 
ought  have  come  to  see  him  long  ago,  drops  into  his 
office  this  morning,  and  talks  five  minutes  with  him, 
and  your  father  is  flattered  out  of  his  five  senses. 
He  's  crazy  to  get  in  with  those  people,  and  I  shall 
have  a  perfect  battle  to  keep  him  within  bounds." 

"  Well,  Persis,  ma'am,  you  can't  say  but  what  you 
began  it,"  said  Penelope. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  began  it,"  confessed  Mrs.   Lapham. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  207 

"  Pen,"  she  broke  out,  "  what  do  you  suppose  he 
means  by  it  ? " 

"  Who  1  Mr.  Corey's  father  1  What  does  the 
Colonel  think  1 " 

"  Oh,  the  Colonel  ! "  cried  Mrs.  Lapham.  She 
added  tremulously  :  "  Perhaps  he  is  right.  He  did 
seem  to  take  a  fancy  to  her  last  summer,  and  now  if 
he 's  called  in  that  way —  She  left  her  daughter 

to  distribute  the  pronouns  aright,  and  resumed:  "  Of 
course,  I  should  have  said  once  that  there  wasn't  any 
question  about  it.  I  should  have  said  so  last  year; 
and  I  don't  know  what  it  is  keeps  me  from  saying  so 
now.  I  suppose  I  know  a  little  more  about  things 
than  I  did  ;  and  your  father 's  being  so  bent  on  it 
sets  me  all  in  a  twitter.  He  thinks  his  money  can 
do  everything.  Well,  I  don't  say  but  what  it  can, 
a  good  many.  And  'Rene  is  as  good  a  child  as  ever 
there  was  ;  and  I  don't  see  but  what  she  's  pretty- 
appearing  enough  to  suit  any  one.  She's  pretty- 
behaved,  too  ;  and  she  is  the  most  capable  girl.  I 
presume  young  men  don't  care  very  much  for  such 
things  nowadays  ;  but  there  ain't  a  great  many  girls 
can  go  right  into  the  kitchen,  and  make  such  a 
custard  as  she  did  yesterday.  And  look  at  the  way 
she  does,  through  the  whole  house  !  She  can't  seem 
to  go  into  a  room  without  the  things  fly  right  into 
their  places.  And  if  she  had  to  do  it  to-morrow,  she 
could  make  all  her  own  dresses  a  great  deal  better 
than  them  we  pay  to  do  it.  I  don't  say  but  what 
he  's  about  as  nice  a  fellow  as  ever  stepped.  But 
there  !  I  'm  ashamed  of  going  on  so." 


208  THE  RISE  OF 

"  Well,  mother,"  said  the  girl  after  a  pause,  in 
which  she  looked  as  if  a  little  weary  of  the  subject, 
"  why  do  you  worry  about  it  ?  If  it 's  to  be  it  '11  be, 
and  if  it  isn't" 

"  Yes,  that 's  what  I  tell  your  father.  But  when 
it  comes  to  myself,  I  see  how  hard  it  is  for  him  to 
rest  quiet.  I'm  afraid  we  shall  all  do  something 
we  '11  repent  of  afterwards." 

"  Well,  ma'am,"  said  Penelope,  "  /  don't  intend 
to  do  anything  wrong ;  but  if  I  do,  I  promise  not  to 
be  sorry  for  it.  I'll  go  that  far.  And  I  think  I 
wouldn't  be  sorry  for  it  beforehand,  if  I  were  in  your 
place,  mother.  Let  the  Colonel  go  on  !  He  likes  to 
manoeuvre,  and  he  isn't  going  to  hurt  any  one.  The 
Corey  family  can  take  care  of  themselves,  I  guess." 

She  laughed  in  her  throat,  drawing  down  the 
corners  of  her  mouth,  and  enjoying  the  resolution 
with  which  her  mother  tried  to  fling  off  the  burden 
of  her  anxieties.  "  Pen  !  I  believe  you  're  right. 
You  always  do  see  things  in  such  a  light !  There  ! 
I  don't  care  if  he  brings  him  down  every  day." 

"  Well,  ma'am,"  said  Pen,  "  I  don't  believe  'Reno 
would,  either.  She 's  just  so  indifferent ! " 

The  Colonel  slept  badly  that  night,  and  in  the 
morning  Mrs.  Lapham  came  to  breakfast  without 
him. 

"  Your  fo,ther  ain't  well,"  she  reported.  "  He 's 
had  one  of  his  turns." 

"  I  should  have  thought  he  had  two  or  three  of 
them,"  said  Penelope,  "  by  the  stamping  round  I 
heard.  Isn't  he  coming  to  breakfast  1 " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  209 

"  Not  just  yet,"  said  her  mother.  "  He  's  asleep, 
and  he  '11  be  all  right  if  he  gets  his  nap  out.  I  don't 
want  you  girls  should  make  any  great  noise." 

"  Oh,  we  '11  be  quiet  enough,"  returned  Penelope. 
"  Well,  I  'm  glad  the  Colonel  isn't  sojering.  At  first 
I  thought  he  might  be  sojering."  She  broke  into 
a  laugh,  and,  struggling  indolently  with  it,  looked  at 
her  sister.  "  You  don't  think  it  '11  be  necessary  for 
anybody  to  come  down  from  the  office  and  take 
orders  from  him  while  he's  laid  up,  do  you, 
mother  ? "  she  inquired. 

"  Pen  ! "  cried  Irene. 

"  He  '11  be  well  enough  to  go  up  on  the  ten  o'clock 
boat,"  said  the  mother  sharply. 

"  I  think  papa  works  too  hard  all  through  the 
summer.  Why  don't  you  make  him  take  a  rest, 
mamma  1 "  asked  Irene. 

"  Oh,  take  a  rest !  The  man  slaves  harder  every 
year.  It  used  to  be  so  that  he  'd  take  a  little  time 
off  now  and  then  ;  but  I  declare,  he  hardly  ever 
seems  to  breathe  now  away  from  his  office.  And 
this  year  he  says  he  doesn't  intend  to  go  down  to 
Lapham,  except  to  see  after  the  works  for  a  few 
days.  /  don't  know  what  to  do  with  the  man  any 
more  !  Seems  as  if  the  more  money  he  got,  the  more 
he  wanted  to  get.  It  scares  me  to  think  what  would 
happen  to  him  if  he  lost  it.  I  know  one  thing,"  con 
cluded  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  He  shall  not  go  back  to  the 
office  to-day." 

"  Then  he  won't  go  up  on  the  ten  o'clock  boat," 
Pen  reminded  her. 


210  THE  RISE  OF 

"No,  he  won't.  You  can  just  drive  over  to  the 
hotel  as  soon  as  you  're  through,  girls,  and  telegraph 
that  he 's  not  well,  and  won't  be  at  the  office  till  to 
morrow.  I  'ra  not  going  to  have  them  send  any 
body  down  here  to  bother  him." 

"That's  a  blow,"  said  Pen.  "I  didn't  know  but 

they  might  send "  she  looked  demurely  at  her 

sister — "Dennis  !" 

"  Mamma  !"  cried  Irene. 

"  Well,  I  declare,  there 's  no  living  with  this 
family  any  more,"  said  Penelope. 

"There,  Pen,  be  done  !"  commanded  her  mother. 
But  perhaps  she  did  not  intend  to  forbid  her  teasing. 
It  gave  a  pleasant  sort  of  reality  to  the  affair  that 
was  in  her  mind,  and  made  what  she  wished  appear 
not  only  possible  but  probable. 

Lapham  got  up  and  lounged  about,  fretting  and 
rebelling  as  each  boat  departed  without  him,  through 
the  day ;  before  night  he  became  very  cross,  in  spite 
of  the  efforts  of  the  family  to  soothe  him,  and 
grumbled  that  he  had  been  kept  from  going  up  to 
town.  "  I  might  as  well  have  gone  as  not,"  he  re 
peated,  till  his  wife  lost  her  patience. 

"  Well,  you  shall  go  to-morrow,  Silas,  if  you  have 
to  be  carried  to  the  boat." 

"  I  declare,"  said  Penelope,  "  the  Colonel  don't 
pet  worth  a  cent." 

The  six  o'clock  boat  brought  Corey.  The  girls 
were  sitting  on  the  piazza,  and  Irene  saw  him 
first. 

"  0   Pen !"    she   whispered,    with   her   heart    in 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  211 

her  face;  and  Penelope  had  no  time  for  mockery 
before  he  was  at  the  steps. 

"  I  hope  Colonel  Lapham  isn't  ill,"  he  said,  and 
they  could  hear  their  mother  engaged  in  a  moral  con 
test  with  their-  father  indoors. 

"  Go  and  put  on  your  coat  !  I  say  you  shall !  It 
don't  matter  hoiv  he  sees  you  at  the  office,  shirt 
sleeves  or  not.  You  're  in  a  gentleman's  house  now 
—  or  you  ought  to  be — and  you  shan't  see  company 
in  your  dressing-gown." 

Penelope  hurried  in  to  subdue  her  mother's  anger. 

"Oh,  he's  very  much  better,  thank  you!"  said 
Irene,  speaking  up  loudly  to  drown  the  noise  of  the 
controversy. 

"  I  'm  glad  of  that,"  said  Corey,  and  when  she  led 
him  indoors  the  vanquished  Colonel  met  his  visitor 
in  a  double  breasted  frock-coat,  which  he  was  still 
buttoning  up.  He  could  not  persuade  himself  at 
once  that  Corey  had  not  come  upon  some  urgent 
business  matter,  and  when  he  was  clear  that  he  had 
come  out  of  civility,  surprise  mingled  with  his  grati 
fication  that  he  should  be  the  object  of  solicitude  to 
the  young  man.  In  Lapham's  circle  of  acquaintance 
they  complained  when  they  were  sick,  but  they  made 
no  womanish  inquiries  after  one  another's  health, 
and  certainly  paid  no  visits  of  sympathy  till  matters 
were  serious.  He  would  have  enlarged  upon  the 
particulars  of  his  indisposition  if  he  had  been  allowed 
to  do  so ;  and  after  tea,  which  Corey  took  with  them, 
he  would  have  remained  to  entertain  him  if  his  wife 
had  not  sent  him  to  bed.  She  followed  him  to  see 


212  THE  RISE  OF 

that  he  took  some  medicine  she  had  prescribed  for 
him,  but  she  went  first  to  Penelope's  room,  where 
she  found  the  girl  with  a  book  in  her  hand,  which 
she  was  not  reading. 

"  You  better  go  down,"  said  the  mother.  "I've 
got  to  go  to  your  father,  and  Irene  is  all  alone 
with  Mr.  Corey  ;  and  I  know  she  '11  be  on  pins  and 
needles  without  you  're  there  to  help  make  it  go  off." 

"  She  'd  better  try  to  get  along  without  me,  mother," 
said  Penelope  soberly.  "I  can't  always  be  with 
them." 

"Well,"  replied  Mrs.  Lapham,  "then  /  must. 
There'll  be  a  perfect  Quaker  meeting  down  there." 

"Oh,  I  guess  'Rene  will  find  something  to  say  if 
you  leave  her  to  herself.  Or  if  she  don't,  he  must. 
It  '11  be  all  right  for  you  to  go  down  when  you  get 
read}' ;  but  I  shan't  go  till  toward  the  last.  If  he  's 
coming  here  to  see  Irene — and  I  don't  believe  he 's 
come  on  father's  account — he  wants  to  see  her  and 
not  me.  If  she  can't  interest  him  alone,  perhaps 
he  'd  as  well  find  it  out  now  as  any  time.  At  any 
rate,  I  guess  you'd  better  make  the  experiment. 
You  '11  know  whether  it  'a  a  success  if  he  comes 
again." 

"Well,"  said  the  mother,  "may  be  you're  right. 
I  rll  go  down  directly.  It  does  seem  as  if  he  did 
mean  something,  after  all." 

Mrs.  Lapham  did  not  hasten  to  return  to  her 
guest  In  her  own  girlhood  it  was  supposed  that  if  a 
young  man  seemed  to  be  coming  to  see  a  girl,  it  was 
only  common-sense  to  suppose  that  he  wished  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  213 

see  her  alone ;  and  her  life  in  town  had  left  Mrs. 
Lapham's  simple  traditions  in  this  respect  unchanged. 
She  did  with  her  daughter  as  her  mother  would 
have  done  with  her. 

Where  Penelope  sat  with  her  book,  she  heard  che 
continuous  murmur  of  voices  below,  and  after  a  long 
interval  she  heard  her  mother  descend.  She  did 
not  read  the  open  book  that  lay  in  her  lap,  though 
she  kept  her  eyes  fast  on  the  print.  Once  she  rose 
and  almost  shut  the  door,  so  that  she  could  scarcely 
hear ;  then  she  opened  it  wide  again  with  a  self-dis 
dainful  air,  and  resolutely  went  back  to  her  book, 
which  again  she  did  not  read.  But  she  remained  in 
her  room  till  it  was  nearly  time  for  Corey  to  return 
to  his  boat. 

When  they  were  alone  again,  Irene  made  a  feint  of 
scolding  her  for  leaving  her  to  entertain  Mr.  Corey. 

"  Why  !  didn't  you  have  a  pleasant  call  ? "  asked 
Penelope. 

Irene  threw  her  arms  round  her.  "  Oh,  it  was  a 
splendid  call !  I  didn't  suppose  I  could  make  it  go 
off  so  well.  We  talked  nearly  the  whole  time  about 
you ! " 

"  I  don't  think  that  was  a  very  interesting  sub 
ject." 

"  He  kept  asking  about  you.  He  asked  every 
thing.  You  don't  know  how  much  he  thinks  of 
you,  Pen.  0  Pen  !  what  do  you  think  made  him 
come  1  Do  you  think  he  really  did  come  to  see  how 
papa  was  1 "  Irene  buried  her  face  in  her  sister's 
neck. 


214  THE  RISE  OF 

Penelope  stood  with  her  arms  at  her  side,  sub 
mitting.  "Well,"  she  said,  "I  don't  think  he  did, 
altogether." 

Irene,  all  glowing,  released  her.  "  Don't  you — 
don't  you  really  ?  0  Pen  !  don't  you  think  he  is 
nice  ?  Don't  you  think  he 's  handsome  1  Don't  you 
think  I  behaved  horridly  when  we  first  met  him  this 
evening,  not  thanking  him  for  coming  ?  I  know  he 
thinks  I  Ve  no  manners.  But  it  seemed  as  if  it  would 
be  thanking  him  for  coming  to  see  me.  Ought  I  to 
have  asked  him  to  come  again,  when  he  said  good 
night  ?  I  didn't ;  I  couldn't.  Do  you  believe  he  '11 
think  I  don't  want  him  to  ?  You  don't  believe  he 
would  keep  coming  if  he  didn't — want  to " 

"  He  hasn't  kept  coming  a  great  deal,  yet,"  sug 
gested  Penelope. 

"  No ;  I  know  he  hasn't  But  if  he — if  he 
should?" 

"  Then  I  should  think  he  wanted  to." 

"  Oh,  would  you — would  you  1  Oh,  how  good  you 
always  are,  Pen  !  And  you  always  say  what  you 
think.  I  wish  there  was  some  one  coming  to  see 
you  too.  That's  all  that  I  don't  like  about  it. 

Perhaps He  was  telling  about  his  friend  there 

in  Texas " 

"  Well,"  said  Penelope,  "  his  friend  couldn't  call 
often  from  Texas.  You  needn't  ask  Mr.  Corey  to 
trouble  about  me,  'Rene.  I  think  I  can  manage  to 
worry  along,  if  you  're  satisfied." 

"  Oh,  I  am,  Pen.  When  do  you  suppose  he  '11 
come  again  1 "  Irene  pushed  some  of  Penelope's 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  215 

things  aside  on  the  dressing-case,  to  rest  her  elbow 
and  talk  at  ease.  Penelope  came  up  and  put  them 
back. 

"Well,  not  to-night,"  she  said;  "and  if  that's 
what  you  're  sitting  up  for " 

Irene  caught  her  round  the  neck  again,  and  ran 
out  of  the  room. 

The  Colonel  was  packed  off  on  the  eight  o'clock 
boat  the  next  morning;  but  his  recovery  did  not 
prevent  Corey  from  repeating  his  visit  in  a  week. 
This  time  Irene  came  radiantly  up  to  Penelope's 
room,  where  she  had  again  withdrawn  herself. 
"  You  must  come  down,  Pen,"  she  said.  "  He 's 
asked  if  you  're  not  well,  and  mamma  says  you  've 
got  to  come." 

After  that  Penelope  helped  Irene  through  with 
her  calls,  and  talked  them  over  with  her  far  into 
the  night  after  Corey  was  gone.  But  when  the  im 
patient  curiosity  of  her  mother  pressed  her  for  some 
opinion  of  the  affair,  she  said,  "  You  know  as  much 
as  I  do,  mother." 

"  Don't  he  ever  say  anything  to  you  about  her — 
praise  her  up,  any  ]  " 

"  He 's  never  mentioned  Irene  to  me." 

"  He  hasn't  to  me,  either,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham, 
with  a  sigh  of  trouble.  "  Then  what  makes  him 
keep  coming  ? " 

"  I  can't  tell  you.  One  thing,  he  says  there  isn't 
a  house  open  in  Boston  where  he's  acquainted. 
Wait  till  some  of  his  friends  get  back,  and  then  if 
he  keeps  coming,  it  '11  be  time  to  inquire." 


216  THE  RISE  OF 

•> 

"  Well ! "  said  the  mother ;  but  as  the  weeks 
passed  she  was  less  and  less  able  to  attribute  Corey's 
visits  to  his  loneliness  in  town,  and  turned  to  her 
husband  for  comfort. 

"  Silas,  I  don't  know  as  we  ought  to  let  young 
Corey  keep  coming  so.  I  don't  quite  like  it,  with 
all  his  family  away." 

"  He  '&  of  age,"  said  the  Colonel.  "  He  can  go 
where  he  pleases.  It  don't  matter  whether  his 
family 's  here  or  not." 

"  Yes,  but  if  they  don't  want  he  should  come  ? 
Should  you  feel  just  right  about  letting  him  ?" 

"  How  're  you  going  to  stop  him  1  I  swear, 
Persis,  I  don't  know  what 's  got  over  you !  What 
is  it  ?  You  didn't  use  to  be  so.  But  to  hear  you 
talk,  you'd  think  those  Coreys  were  too  good  for 
this  world,  and  we  wan't  fit  for  'em  to  walk  on." 

"  1  'in  not  going  to  have  'em  say  we  took  an 
advantage  of  their  being  away  and  tolled  him  on." 

"  I  should  like  to  hear  'em  say  it ! "  cried  Lapham. 
"  Or  anybody  ! " 

"  Well,"  said  his  wife,  relinquishing  this  point  of 
anxiety,  "  I  can't  make  out  whether  he  cares  any 
thing  for  her  or  not.  And  Pen  can't  tell  either ;  or 
else  she  won't." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  he  cares  for  her,  fast  enough,"  said 
the  Colonel. 

"  I  can't  make  out  that  he 's  said  or  done  the 
first  thing  to  show  it." 

"  Well,  I  was  better  than  a  year  getting  my 
courage  up." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  217 

"Oh,  that  was  different,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  in 
contemptuous  dismissal  of  the  comparison,  and  yet 
with  a  certain  fondness.  "  I  guess,  if  he  cared  for 
her,  a  fellow  in  his  position  wouldn't  be  long  getting 
up  his  courage  to  speak  to  Irene." 

Lapham  brought  his  fist  down  on  the  table 
between  them. 

"  Look  here,  Persis  !  Once  for  all,  now,  don't 
you  ever  let  me  hear  you  say  anything  like  that 
again  !  I  'm  worth  nigh  on  to  a  million,  and  I  Ve 
made  it  every  cent  myself;  and  my  girls  are  the 
equals  of  anybody,  I  don't  care  who  it  is.  He  ain't 
the  fellow  to  take  on  any  airs ;  but  if  he  ever  tries 
it  with  me,  I  '11  send  him  to  the  right  about  mighty 
quick.  I  '11  have  a  talk  with  him,  if " 

"  No,  no ;  don't  do  that ! "  implored  his  wife.  "  I 
didn't  mean  anything.  I  don't  know  as  I  meant  any 
thing.  He 's  just  as  unassuming  as  he  can  be,  and  I 
think  Irene's  a  match  for  anybody.  You  just  let 
things  go  on.  It  '11  be  all  right.  You  never  can  tell 
how  it  is  with  young  people.  Perhaps  she 's  offish. 
Now  you  ain't — you  ain't  going  to  say  anything  1" 

Lapham  suffered  himself  to  be  persuaded,  the 
more  easily,  no  doubt,  because  after  his  explosion 
he  must  have  perceived  that  his  pride  itself  stood 
in  the  way  of  what  his  pride  had  threatened.  He 
contented  himself  with  his  wife's  promise  that  she 
would  never  again  present  that  offensive  view  of 
the  case,  and  she  did  not  remain  without  a  certain 
support  in  his  sturdy  self-assertion. 


XII. 

MRS.  COREY  returned  with  her  daughters  in  the 
early  days  of  October,  having  passed  three  or  four 
weeks  at  Intervale  after  leaving  Bar  Harbour.  They 
were  someAvhat  browner  than  they  were  when  they 
left  town  in  June,  but  they  were  not  otherwise 
changed.  Lily,  the  elder  of  the  girls,  had  brought 
back  a  number  of  studies  of  kelp  and  toadstools, 
with  accessory  rocks  and  rotten  logs,  which  she 
would  never  finish  up  and  never  show  any  one, 
knowing  the  slightness  of  their  merit.  Nanny,  the 
younger,  had  read  a  great  many  novels  with  a 
keen  sense  of  their  inaccuracy  as  representations  of 
life,  and  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  life  with  a  sad 
regret  for  its  difference  from  fiction.  They  were 
both  nice  girls,  accomplished,  well-dressed  of  course, 
and  well  enough  looking ;  but  they  bad  met  no  one 
at  the  seaside  or  the  mountains  whom  their  taste 
would  allow  to  influence  their  fate,  and  they  had 
come  home  to  the  occupations  they  had  left,  with 
no  hopes  and  no  fears  to  distract  them. 

In  the  absence  of  these  they  were  fitted  to  take 
the  more  vivid  interest  in  their  brother's  affairs, 

218 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  219 

which  they  could  see  weighed  upon  their  mother's 
mind  after  the  first  hours  of  greeting. 

"  Oh,  it  seems  to  have  been  going  on,  and  your 
father  has  never  written  a  word  about  it,"  she  said, 
shaking  her  head. 

"  What  good  would  it  have  done  ?  "  asked  Nanny, 
who  was  little  and  fair,  with  rings  of  light  hair  that 
filled  a  bonnet-front  very  prettily ;  she  looked  best 
in  a  bonnet.  "It  would  only  have  worried  you. 
He  could  not  have  stopped  Tom ;  you  couldn't, 
when  you  came  home  to  do  it." 

"I  dare  say  papa  didn't  know  much  about  it," 
suggested  Lily.  She  was  a  tall,  lean,  dark  girl,  who 
looked  as  if  she  were  not  quite  warm  enough,  and 
whom  you  always  associated  with  wraps  of  different 
aesthetic  effect  after  you  had  once  seen  her. 

It  is  a  serious  matter  always  to  the  women  of  his 
family  when  a  young  man  gives  them  cause  to  sus 
pect  that  he  is  interested  in  some  other  woman.  A 
son-in-law  or  brother-in-law  does  not  enter  the  family; 
he  need  not  be  caressed  or  made  anything  of ;  but 
the  son's  or  brother's  wife  has  a  claim  upon  his 
mother  and  sisters  which  they  cannot  deny.  Some 
convention  of  their  sex  obliges  them  to  show  her 
affection,  to  like  or  to  seem  to  like  her,  to  take  her 
to  their  intimacy,  however  odious  she  may  be  to 
them.  With  the  Coreys  it  was  something  more 
than  an  affair  of  sentiment.  They  were  by  no 
means  poor,  and  they  were  not  dependent  money- 
wise  upon  Tom  Corey ;  but  the  mother  had  come, 
without  knowing  it,  to  rely  upon  his  sense,  his 


220  THE  RISE  OF 

advice  in  everything,  and  the  sisters,  seeing  him 
hitherto  so  indifferent  to  girls,  had  insensibly  grown 
to  regard  him  as  altogether  their  own  till  he  should 
be  released,  not  by  his  marriage,  but  by  theirs,  an 
event  which  had  not  approached  with  the  lapse  of 
time.  Some  kinds  of  girls — they  believed  that  they 
could  readily  have  chosen  a  kind — might  have  taken 
him  without  taking  him  from  them ;  but  this  gene 
rosity  could  not  be  hoped  for  in  such  a  girl  as  Miss 
Lapham. 

"  Perhaps,"  urged  their  mother,  "  it  would  not  be 
so  bad.  She  seamed  an  affectionate  little  thing 
with  her  mother,  without  a  great  deal  of  character, 
though  she  was  so  capable  about  some  things." 

"Oh,  she'll  be  an  affectionate  little  thing  with 
Tom  too,  you  may  be  sure,"  said  Nanny.  "And 
that  characterless  capability  becomes  the  most  in 
tense  narrow-mindedness.  She  '11  think  we  were 
against  her  from  the  beginning." 

"  She  has  no  cause  for  that,"  Lily  interposed, 
"and  we  shall  not  give  her  any." 

"  Yes,  we  shall,"  retorted  Nanny.  "  We  can't 
help  it ;  and  if  we  can't,  her  own  ignorance  would 
be  cause  enough." 

"  I  can't  feel  that  she 's  altogether  ignorant,"  said 
Mrs.  Corey  justly. 

"  Of  course  she  can  read  and  write,"  admitted 
Nanny. 

"  I  can't  imagine  what  he  finds' to  talk  about  with 
her,"  said  Lily. 

"  Oh,   that 's  very   simple,"   returned   her   sister. 


SILAS   LAPHAM.  221 

"  They  talk  about  themselves,  with  occasional  refer 
ences  to  each  other.  I  have  heard  people  '  going 
on '  on  the  hotel  piazzas.  She 's  embroidering,  or 
knitting,  or  tatting,  or  something  of  that  kind  ;  and 
he  says  she  seems  quite  devoted  to  needlework, 
and  she  says,  yes,  she  has  a  perfect  passion  for  it, 
and  everybody  laughs  at  her  for  it ;  but  she  can't 
help  it,  she  always  was  so  from  a  child,  and  supposes 
she  always  shall  be, — with  remote  and  minute  par 
ticulars.  And  she  ends  by  saying  that  perhaps  he 
does  not  like  people  to  tat,  or  knit,  or  embroider, 
or  whatever.  And  he  says,  oh,  yes,  he  does ;  what 
could  make  her  think  such  a  thing  1  but  for  his  part 
he  likes  boating  rather  better,  or  if  you're  in  the 
woods  camping.  Then  she  lets  him  take  up  one 
corner  of  her  work,  and  perhaps  touch  her  fingers ; 
and  that  encourages  him  to  say  that  he  supposes 
nothing  could  induce  her  to  drop  her  work  long 
enough  to  go  down  on  the  rocks,  or  out  among  the 
huckleberry  bushes  ;  and  she  puts  her  head  on  one 
side,  and  says  she  doesn't  know  really.  And  then 
they  go,  and  he  lies  at  her  feet  on  the  rocks,  or 
picks  huckleberries  and  drops  them  in  her  lap,  and 
they  go  on  talking  about  themselves,  and  comparing 
notes  to  see  how  they  differ  from  each  other. 

And " 

"  That  will  do,  Nanny,"  said  her  mother. 
Lily  smiled  autumnally.     "  Oh,  disgusting  ! " 
"  Disgusting  ?     Not  at  all  !  "  protested  her  sister. 
"  It 's  very  amusing  when  you  see  it,  and  when  you 
do  it " 


222  THE  RISE  OF 

» 

"  It 's  always  a  mystery  what  people  see  in  each 
other,"  observed  Mrs.  Corey  severely. 

"  Yes,"  Nanny  admitted,  "  but  I  don't  know  that 
there  is  much  comfort  for  us  in  the  application." 

"  No,  there  isn't,"  said  her  mother. 

"  The  most  that  we  can  do  is  to  hope  for  the  best 
till  we  know  the  worst.  Of  course  we  shall  make 
the  best  of  the  worst  when  it  comes." 

"  Yes,  and  perhaps  it  would  not  be  so  very  bad. 
I  was  saying  to  your  father  when  I  was  here  in 
July  that  those  things  can  always  be  managed. 
You  must  face  them  as  if  they  were  nothing  out  of 
the  way,  and  try  not  to  give  any  cause  for  bitterness 
among  ourselves." 

"  That  'a  true.  But  I  don't  believe  in  too  much 
resignation  beforehand.  It  amounts  to  concession," 
said  Nanny. 

"  Of  course  we  should  oppose  it  in  all  proper 
ways,"  returned  her  mother. 

Lily  had  ceased  to  discuss  the  matter.  In  virtue 
of  her  artistic  temperament,  she  was  expected  not 
to  be  very  practical.  It  was  her  mother  and  her 
sister  who  managed,  submitting  to  the  advice  and 
consent  of  Corey  what  they  intended  to  do. 

"  Your  father  wrote  me  that  he  had  called  on 
Colonel  Lapham  at  his  place  of  business,"  said  Mrs. 
Corey,  seizing  her  first  chance  of  approaching  the 
subject  with  her  son. 

"  Yes,"  said  Corey.  "  A  dinner  was  father's  idea, 
but  he  came  down  to  a  call,  at  my  suggestion." 

"  Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  in  a  tone  of  relief,  as  if 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  223 

the  statement  threw  a  new  light  on  the  fact  that 
Corey  had  suggested  the  visit.  "  He  said  so  little 
about  it  in  his  letter  that  I  didn't  know  just  how  it 
came  about." 

"  I  thought  it  was  right  they  should  meet,"  ex 
plained  the  son,  "and  so  did  father.  I  was  glad 
that  I  suggested  it,  afterward ;  it  was  extremely 
gratifying  to  Colonel  Lapham." 

"  Oh,  it  was  quite  right  in  every  way.  I  suppose 
you  have  seen  something  of  the  family  during  the 
summer." 

"  Yes,  a  good  deal.  I  've  been  down  at  Nantasket 
rather  often." 

Mrs.  Corey  let  her  eyes  droop.  Then  she  asked : 
"  Are  they  well  ? " 

"  Yes,  except  Lapham  himself,  now  and  then.  I 
went  down  once  or  twice  to  see  him.  He  hasn't 
given  himself  any  vacation  this  summer;  he  has 
such  a  passion  for  his  business  that  I  fancy  he  finds 
it  hard  being  away  from  it  at  any  time,  and  he's 
made  his  new  house  an  excuse  for  staying " 

"  Oh  yes,  his  house  !     Is  it  to  be  something  fine  ?" 

"  Yes  ;  it 's  a  beautiful  house.  Seymour  is  doing 
it," 

"  Then,  of  course,  it  will  be  very  handsome.  I 
suppose  the  young  ladies  are  very  much  taken  up 
with  it  >  and  Mrs.  Lapham." 

"  Mrs.  Lapham,  yes.  I  don't  think  the  young 
ladies  care  so  much  about  it." 

"  It  must  be  for  them.  Aren't  they  ambitious  ? " 
asked  Mrs.  Corey,  delicately  feeling  her  way. 


224  THE  RISE  OF 

Her  son  thought  a  while.  Then  he  answered  with 
a  smile — 

"No,  I  don't  really  think  they  are.  They  are 
unambitious,  I  should  say."  Mrs.  Corey  permitted 
herself  a  long  breath.  But  her  son  added,  "  It 's 
the  parents  who  are  ambitious  for  them,"  and  her 
respiration  became  shorter  again. 

"  Yes,"  she  said. 

"They're  very  simple,  nice  girls,"  pursued  Corey. 
"  I  think  you  '11  like  the  elder,  when  you  come  to 
know  her." 

When  you  come  to  know  her.  The  words  implied 
an  expectation  that  the  two  families  were  to  be 
better  acquainted. 

"  Then  she  is  more  intellectual  than  her  sister  ? " 
Mrs.  Corey  ventured. 

"Intellectual1?"  repeated  her  son.  "No;  that 
isn't  the  word,  quite.  Though  she  certainly  has 
more  mind." 

"  The  younger  seemed  very  sensible." 

"  Oh,  sensible,  yes.  And  as  practical  as  she 's 
pretty.  She  can  do  all  sorts  of  things,  and  likes  to 
be  doing  them.  Don't  you  think  she's  an  extra 
ordinary  beauty  1" 

"  Yes — yes,  she  is,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  at  some  cost. 

"  She 's  good,  too,"  said  Corey,  "  and  perfectly 
innocent  and  transparent.  I  think  you  will  like 
her  the  better  the  more  you  know  her." 

"  I  thought  her  very  nice  from  the  beginning," 
said  the  mother  heroically  ;  and  then  nature  asserted 
itself  in  her.  "  But  I  should  be  afraid  that  she 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  225 

might  perhaps  be  a  little  bit  tiresome  at  last ;  her 
range  of  ideas  seemed  so  extremely  limited." 

"  Yes,  that 's  what  I  was  afraid  of.  But,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  she  isn't.  She  interests  you  by  her 
very  limitations.  You  can  see  the  working  of  her 
mind,  like  that  of  a  child.  She  isn't  at  all  conscious 
even  of  her  beauty." 

"  I  don't  believe  young  men  can  tell  whether  girls 
are  conscious  or  not,"  said  Mrs.  Corey.  "  But  I  am 

not  saying  the  Miss  Laphams  are  not "     Her  son 

sat  musing,  with  an  inattentive  smile  on  his  face. 
"  What  is  it  ?" 

"  Oh  !  nothing.  I  was  thinking  of  Miss  Lapham 
and  something  she  was  saying.  She's  very  droll, 
you  know." 

"  The  elder  sister  ?  Yes,  you  told  me  that.  Can 
you  see  the  workings  of  her  mind  too  ]" 

"No;  she's  everything  that's  unexpected." 
Corey  fell  into  another  reverie,  and  smiled  again  ; 
but  he  did  not  offer  to  explain  what  amused  him, 
and  his  mother  would  not  ask. 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  his  admiring  the 
girl  so  frankly,"  she  said  afterward  to  her  husband. 
"That  couldn't  come  naturally  till  after  he  had 
spoken  to  her,  and  I  feel  sure  that  he  hasn't  yet." 

"  You  women  haven't  risen  yet — it's  an  evidence  of 
the  backwardness  of  your  sex — to  a  conception  of  the 
Bismarck  idea  in  diplomacy.  If  a  man  praises  one 
woman,  you  still  think  he's  in  love  with  another. 
Do  you  mean  that  because  Tom  didn't  praise  the 
elder  sister  so  much,  he  has  spoken  to  her  ?" 
p 


226  THE  RISE  OF 

Mrs.  Corey  refused  the  consequence,  saying  that 
it  did  not  follow.  "  Besides,  he  did  praise  her." 

"  You  ought  to  be  glad  that  matters  are  in  such 
good  shape,  then.  At  any  rate,  you  can  do  abso 
lutely  nothing." 

"  Oh  !  I  know  it,"  sighed  Mrs.  Corey.  "  I  wish 
Tom  would  be  a  little  opener  with  me." 

"  He 's  as  open  as  it 's  in  the  nature  of  an  American- 
born  son  to  be  with  his  parents.  I  dare  say  if 
you'd  asked  him  plumply  what  he  meant  in  regard 
.  to  the  young  lady,  he  would  have  told  you — if  he 
.  knew." 

"  Why,  don't  you  think  he  does  know,  Brom- 
field?" 

"  I  'm  not  at  all  sure  he  does.  You  women  think 
that  because  a  young  man  dangles  after  a  girl,  or 
girls,  he 's  attached  to  them.  It  doesn't  at  all  follow. 
He  dangles  because  he  must,  and  doesn't  know  what 
to  do  with  his  time,  and  because  they  seem  to  like 
it.  I  dare  say  that  Tom  has  dangled  a  good  deal  in 
this  instance  because  there  was  nobody  else  in  town." 

"  Do  you  really  think  so  1" 

"  I  throw  out  the  suggestion.  And  it  strikes  me 
that  a  young  lady  couldn't  do  better  than  stay  in  or 
near  Boston  during  the  summer.  Most  of  the  young 
men  are  here,  kept  by  business  through  the  week, 
with  evenings  available  only  on  the  spot,  or  a  few 
miles  off.  What  was  the  proportion  of  the  sexes  at 
the  seashore  and  the  mountains  ?" 

"  Oh,  twenty  girls  at  least  for  even  an  excuse  of  a 
man.  It 's  shameful." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  227 

"  You  see,  I  am  right  in  one  part  of  my  theory. 
Why  shouldn't  I  be  right  in  the  rest  1" 

"  I  wish  you  were.  And  yet  I  can't  say  that  I  do. 
Those  things  are  very  serious  with  girls.  I  shouldn't 
like  Tom  to  have  been  going  to  see  those  people  if 
he  meant  nothing  by  it." 

"And  you  wouldn't  like  it  if  he  did.  You  are 
difficult,  my  dear."  Her  husband  pulled  an  open 
newspaper  toward  him  from  the  table. 

"  I  feel  that  it  wouldn't  be  at  all  like  him  to  do 
so,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  going  on  to  entangle  herself  in 
her  words,  as  women  often  do  when  their  ideas 
are  perfectly  clear.  "  Don't  go  to  reading,  please, 
Bromfield  !  I  am  really  worried  about  this  matter 
I  must  know  how  much  it  means.  I  can't  let  it 
go  on  so.  I  don't  see  how  you  can  rest  easy  with 
out  knowing." 

"  I  don't  in  the  least  know  what 's  going  to 
become  of  me  when  I  die  ;  and  yet  I  sleep  well,"  re 
plied  Bromfield  Gorey,  putting  his  newspaper  aside. 

"  Ah  !  but  this  is  a  very  different  thing." 

"  So  much  more  serious  ?  Well,  what  can  you  do  ? 
We  had  this  out  when  you  were  here  in  the  summer, 
and  you  agreed  with  me  then  that  we  could  do 
nothing.  The  situation  hasn't  changed  at  all.' 

"  Yes,  it  has  ;  it  has  continued  the  same,"  said 
Mrs.  Corey,  again  expressing  the  fact  by  a  contradic 
tion  in  terms.  "  I  think  I  must  ask  Tom  outright." 

"  You  know  you  can't  do  that,  my  dear." 

"  Then  why  doesn't  he  tell  us  ?  " 

"  Ah,  that 's  what  he  can't  do,  if  he 's  making  love 


228  THE  RISE  OF 

to  Miss  Irene — that 's  her  name,  I  believe — on  the 
American  plan.  He  will  tell  us  after  he  has  told 
her.  That  was  the  way  I  did.  Don't  ignore  our 
own  youth,  Anna.  It  was  a  long  while  ago,  I  '11 
admit." 

"  It  was  very  different,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  a  little 
shaken. 

"  I  don't  see  how.  I  dare  say  Mamma  Lapham 
knows  whether  Tom  is  in  love  with  her  daughter  or 
not ;  and  no  doubt  Papa  Lapham  knows  it  at  second 
hand.  But  we  shall  not  know  it  until  the  girl  her 
self  does.  Depend  upon  that.  Your  mother  knew, 
and  she  told  your  father ;  but  my  poor  father  knew 
nothing  about  it  till  we  were  engaged ;  and  I  had 
been  hanging  about — dangling,  as  you  call  it " 

"  No,  no ;  you  called  it  that." 

"  Was  it  I  ? — for  a  year  or  more." 

The  wife  could  not  refuse  to  be  a  little  consoled 
by  the  image  of  her  young  love  which  the  words 
conjured  up,  however  little  she  liked  its  relation  to. 
her  son's  interest  in  Irene  Lapham.  She  smiled 
pensively.  "  Then  you  think  it  hasn't  come  to  an 
understanding  with  them  yet  ? " 

"  An  understanding  1     Oh,  probably." 

"  An  explanation,  then  1 " 

"  The  only  logical  inference  from  what  we  've 
been  saying  is  that  it  hasn't.  But  I  don't  ask  you 
to  accept  it  on  that  account.  May  I  read  now,  my 
dear  ? " 

"  Yes,  you  may  repxl  now,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  with 
one  of  those  sighs  which  perhaps  express  a  feminine 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  229 

sense  of  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  husbands  in  gene 
ral,  rather  than  a  personal  discontent  with  her  own. 

"  Thank  you,  my  dear ;  then  I  think  I  '11  smoke 
too,"  said  Bromfield  Corey,  lighting  a  cigar. 

She  left  him  in  peace,  and  she  made  no  further 
attempt  upon  her  son's  confidence.  But  she  was 
not  inactive  for  that  reason.  She  did  not,  of  course, 
admit  to  herself,  and  far  less  to  others,  the  motive 
with  which  she  went  to  pay  an  early  visit  to  the 
Laphams,  who  had  now  come  up  from  Nantasket  to 
Nankeen  Square.  She  said  to  her  daughters  that 
she  had  always  been  a  little  ashamed  of  using  her 
acquaintance  with  them  to  get  money  for  her 
charity,  and  then  seeming  to  drop  it.  Besides,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  she  ought  somehow  to  recognise 
the  business  relation  that  Tom  had  formed  with  the 
father ;  they  must  not  think  that  his  family  disap 
proved  of  what  he  had  done. 

"  Yes,  business  is  business,"  said  Nanny,  with  a 
laugh.  "  Do  you  wish  us  to  go  with  you  again  ? " 

"  No ;  I  will  go  alone  this  time,"  replied  the 
mother  with  dignity. 

Her  coup6  now  found  its  way  to  Nankeen  Square 
without  difficulty,  and  she  sent  up  a  card,  which 
Mrs.  Lapham  received  in  the  presence  of  her 
daughter  Penelope. 

"  I  presume  I  Ve  got  to  see  her,"  she  gasped. 

"  Well,  don't  look  so  guilty,  mother,"  joked  the 
girl ;  "  you  haven't  been  doing  anything  so  very 
wrong." 

"  It  seems  as  if  I  had.     I  don't  know  what 's  come 


230  THE  RISE  OF 

over  me.  I  wasn't  afraid  of  the  woman  before,  but 
now  I  don't  seem  to  feel  as  if  I  could  look  her  in 
the  face.  He 's  been  coming  here  of  his  own  accord, 
and  I  fought  against  his  coming  long  enough,  good 
ness  knows.  I  didn't  want  him  to  come.  And 
as  far  forth  as  that  goes,  we  're  as  respectable  as 
they  are ;  and  your  father 's  got  twice  their  money, 
any  day.  We  've  no  need  to  go  begging  for  their 
favour.  I  guess  they  were  glad  enough  to  get  him 
in  with  your  father." 

"  Yes,  those  are  all  good  points,  mother,"  said  the 
girl ;  "  and  if  you  keep  saying  them  over,  and  count 
a  hundred  every  time  before  you  speak,  I  guess 
you  '11  worry  through." 

Mrs.  Lapharn  had  been  fussing  distractedly  with 
her  hair  and  ribbons,  in  preparation  for  her  encoun 
ter  with  Mrs.  Corey.  She  now  drew  in  a  long 
quivering  breath,  stared  at  her  daughter  without 
seeing  her,  and  hurried  downstairs.  It  was  true 
that  when  she  met  Mrs.  Corey  before  she  had  not 
been  awed  by  her ;  but  since  then  she  had  learned 
at  least  her  own  ignorance  of  the  world,  and  she 
had  talked  over  the  things  she  had  misconceived 
and  the  things  she  had  shrewdly  guessed  so  much 
that  she  could  not  meet  her  on  the  former  footing 
of  equality.  In  spite  of  as  brave  a  spirit  and  as 
good  a  conscience  as  woman  need  have,  Mrs.  Lap- 
ham  cringed  inwardly,  and  tremulously  wondered 
what  her  visitor  had  come  for.  She  turned 
from  pale  to  red,  and  was  hardly  coherent  in  her 
greetings;  she  did  not  know  how  they  got  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  231 

where  Mrs.  Corey  was  saying  exactly  the  right 
things  about  her  son's  interest  and  satisfaction  in 
his  new  business,  and  keeping  her  eyes  fixed  on 
Mrs.  Lapham's,  reading  her  uneasiness  there,  and 
making  her  feel,  in  spite  of  her  indignant  innocence, 
that  she  had  taken  a  base  advantage  of  her  in  her 
absence  to  get  her  son  away  from  her  and  many 
him  to  Irene.  Then,  presently,  while  this  was  pain 
fully  revolving  itself  in  Mrs.  Lapham's  mind,  she 
was  aware  of  Mrs.  Corey 's  asking  if  she  was  not  to 
have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Miss  Irene. 

"  No ;  she 's  out,  just  now,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham. 
"  I  don't  know  just  when  she  '11  be  in.  She  went  to 
get  a  book."  And  here  she  turned  red  again,  know 
ing  that  Irene  had  gone  to  get  the  book  because  it 
was  one  that  Corey  had  spoken  of. 

"  Oh  !  I  'm  sorry,"  said  Mrs.  Corey.  "  I  had 
hoped  to  see  her.  And  your  other  daughter,  whom 
I  never  met  ? " 

"  Penelope  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Lapham,  eased  a  little. 
"  She  is  at  home.  I  will  go  and  call  her."  The 
Laphams  had  not  yet  thought  of  spending  their 
superfluity  on  servants  who  could  be  rung  for ;  they 
kept  two  girls  and  a  man  to  look  after  the  furnace, 
as  they  had  for  the  last  ten  years.  If  Mrs.  Lapham 
had  rung  in  the  parlour,  her  second  girl  would  have 
gone  to  the  street  door  to  see  who  was  there.  She 
went  upstairs  for  Penelope  herself,  and  the  girl, 
after  some  rebellious  derision,  returned  with  her. 

Mrs.  Corey  took  account  of  her,  as  Penelope 
withdrew  to  the  other  side  of  the  room  after  their 


232  THE  RISE  OF 

introduction,  and  sat  down,  indolently  submissive 
on  the  surface  to  the  tests  to  be  applied,  and  follow 
ing  Mrs.  Corey's  lead  of  the  conversation  in  her  odd 
drawl. 

"  You  young  ladies  will  be  glad  to  be  getting  into 
your  new  house,"  she  said  politely. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Penelope.  "  We  're  so  used 
to  this  one." 

Mrs.  Corey  looked  a  little  baffled,  but  she  said 
sympathetically,  "  Of  course,  you  will  be  sorry  to 
leave  your  old  home." 

Mrs.  Laphain  could  not  help  putting  in  on  behalf 
of  her  daughters :  "  I  guess  if  it  was  left  to  the 
girls  to  say,  we  shouldn't  leave  it  at  all." 

"Oh,  indeed!"  said  Mrs.  Corey;  "are  they  so 
much  attached  ?  But  I  can  quite  understand  it. 
My  children  would  be  heart-broken  too  if  we  were 
to  leave  the  old  place."  She  turned  to  Penelope. 
"  But  you  must  think  of  the  lovely  new  house,  and 
the  beautiful  position." 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  we  shall  get  used  to  them  too,"said 
Penelope,  in  response  to  this  didactic  consolation. 

"  Oh,  I  could  even  imagine  your  getting  very  fond 
of  them,"  pursued  Mrs.  Corey  patronisingly.  "  My 
son  has  told  me  of  the  lovely  outlook  you  're  to  have 
over  the  water.  He  thinks  you  have  such  a  beauti 
ful  house.  I  believe  he  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting 
you  all  there  when  he  first  came  home." 

"  Yes,  I  think  he  was  our  first  visitor." 

"  He  is  a  great  admirer  of  your  house,"  said  Mrs. 
Corey,  keeping  her  eyes  very  sharply,  however 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  233 

politely,  on  Penelope's  face,  as  if  to  surprise  there 
the  secret  of  any  other  great  admiration  of  her  son's 
that  might  helplessly  show  itself. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  girl,  "  he 's  been  there  several 
times  with  father;  and  he  wouldn't  be  allowed  to 
overlook  any  of  its  good  points." 

Her  mother  took  a  little  more  courage  from  her 
daughter's  tranquillity. 

"  The  girls  make  such  fun  of  their  father's  ex 
citement  about  his  building,  and  the  way  he  talks  it 
into  everybody." 

"  Oh,  indeed  ! "  said  Mrs.  Corey,  with  civil  mis 
understanding  and  inquiry. 

Penelope  flushed,  and  her  mother  went  on :  "I 
tell  him  he 's  more  of  a  child  about  it  than  any  of 
them." 

"  Young  people  are  very  philosophical  nowadays," 
remarked  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  I  tell  them 
they  've  always  had  everything,  so  that  nothing 's  a 
surprise  to  them.  It  was  different  with  us  in  our 
young  days." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  without  assenting. 

"  I  mean  the  Colonel  and  myself,"  explained  Mrs. 
Lapham. 

"Oh  yes — yes!"  said  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  I  'm  sure,"  the  former  went  on,  rather  helplessly, 
"  we  had  to  work  hard  enough  for  everything  we 
got.  And  so  we  appreciated  it." 

"  So  many  things  were  not  done  for  young  people 
then,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  not  recognising  the  early- 


234  THE  RISE  OF 

hardships  stand-point  of  Mrs.  Lapham.  "But  I 
don't  know  that  they  are  always  the  better  for  it 
now,"  she  added  vaguely,  but  with  the  satisfaction 
we  all  feel  in  uttering  a  just  commonplace. 

"  It 's  rather  hard  living  up  to  blessings  that  you  've 
always  had,"  said  Penelope. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Mrs.  Corey  distractedly,  and 
coming  back  to  her  slowly  from  the  virtuous  dis 
tance  to  which  she  had  absented  herself.  She 
looked  at  the  girl  searchingly  again,  as  if  to  deter 
mine  whether  this  were  a  touch  of  the  drolling  her 
son  had  spoken  of.  But  she  only  added  :  "  You  will 
enjoy  the  sunsets  on  the  Back  Bay  so  much." 

"  Well,  not  unless  they  're  new  ones,"  said  Pene 
lope.  "  I  don't  believe  I  could  promise  to  enjoy 
any  sunsets  that  I  was  used  to,  a  great  deal." 

Mrs.  Corey  looked  at  her  with  misgiving,  harden 
ing  into  dislike.  "  No,"  she  breathed  vaguely. 
"  My  son  spoke  of  the  fine  effect  of  the  lights  about 
the  hotel  from  your  cottage  at  Nantasket,"  she  said 
to  Mrs.  Lapham. 

"  Yes,  they  're  splendid  ! "  exclaimed  that  lady.  "  I 
guess  the  girls  went  down  every  night  with  him  to 
see  them  from  the  rocks." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  a  little  dryly ;  and  she 
permitted  herself  to  add  :  "  He  spoke  of  those  rocks. 
I  suppose  both  you  young  ladies  spend  a  great  deal 
of  your  time  on  them  when  you're  there.  At 
Nahant  my  children  were  constantly  on  them." 

"Irene  likes  the  rocks,"  said  Penelope.  "I  don't 
care  much  about  them, — especially  at  night." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  237 

"  Oh,  indeed  !  I  suppose  you  find  it  quite  ase  me 
looking  at  the  lights  comfortably  from  the  veranctf  'd 

"  No  ;  you  can't  see  them  from  the  house."          '* 

"  Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Corey.  After  a  perceptible  pause, 
she  turned  to  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  I  don't  know  what 
my  son  would  have  done  for  a  breath  of  sea  air  this 
summer,  if  you  had  not  allowed  him  to  come  to 
Nantasket.  He  wasn't  willing  to  leave  his  business 
long  enough  to  go  anywhere  else." 

"  Yes,  he 's  a  born  business  man,"  responded  Mrs. 
Lapham  enthusiastically.  "  If  it 's  born  in  you,  it 's 
bound  to  come  out.  That's  what  the  Colonel  is 
always  saying  about  Mr.  Corey.  He  says  it 's  born  in 
him  to  be  a  business  man,  and  he  can't  help  it."  She 
recurred  to  Corey  gladly  because  she  felt  that  she 
had  not  said  enough  of  him  when  his  mother  first 
spoke  of  his  connection  with  the  business.  "  I  don't 
believe,"  she  went  on  excitedly,  "  that  Colonel  Lap- 
ham  has  ever  had  anybody  with  him  that  he  thought 
more  of." 

"  You  have  all  been  very  kind  to  my  son,"  said 
Mrs.  Corey  in  acknowledgment,  and  stiffly  bowing 
a  little,  "  and  we  feel  greatly  indebted  to  you.  Very 
much  so." 

At  these  grateful  expressions  Mrs.  Lapham 
reddened  once  more,  and  murmured  that  it  had  been 
very  pleasant  to  them,  she  was  sure.  She  glanced 
at  her  daughter  for  support,  but  Penelope  was  look 
ing  at  Mrs.  Corey,  who  doubtless  saw  her  from  the 
corner  of  her  eyes,  though  she  went  on  speaking  to 
her  mother. 


234  THE  RISE  OF 

hardshi' was  sorry  to  hear  from  him  that  Mr. — Colonel  ? 
don'txjapham  had  not  been  quite  well  this  summer, 
noi  hope  he 's  better  now  ? " 

"  Oh  yes,  indeed,"  replied  Mrs.  Lapham  ;  "  he 's  all 
right  now.  He 's  hardly  ever  been  sick,  and  he  don't 
know  how  to  take  care  of  himself.  That 's  all.  We 
don't  any  of  us  ;  we  're  all  so  well." 

"  Health  is  a  great  blessing,"  sighed  Mrs.  Corey. 

"  Yes,  so  it  is.  How  is  your  oldest  daughter  ? " 
inquired  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  Is  she  as  delicate  as 
ever  ?" 

"  She  seems  to  be  rather  better  since  we  returned." 
And  now  Mrs.  Corey,  as  if  forced  to  the  point,  said 
bunglingly  that  the  young  ladies  had  wished  to  come 
with  her,  but  had  been  detained.  She  based  her 
statement  upon  Nanny's  sarcastic  demand ;  and, 
perhaps  seeing  it  topple  a  little,  she  rose  hastily,  to 
get  away  from  its  fall.  "  But  we  shall  hope  for 
some — some  other  occasion,"  she  said  vaguely,  and 
she  put  on  a  parting  smile,  and  shook  hands  with 
Mrs.  Lapham  and  Penelope,  and  then,  after  some 
lingering  commonplaces,  got  herself  out  of  the  house. 

Penelope  and  her  mother  were  still  looking  at  each 
other,  and  trying  to  grapple  with  the  effect  or  pur 
port  of  the  visit,  when  Irene  burst  in  upon  them 
from  the  outside. 

"  O  mamma  !  wasn't  that  Mrs.  Corey's  carriage 
just  drove  away  1  " 

Penelope  answered  with  her  laugh.  "  Yes  1 
You  've  just  missed  the  most  delightful  call,  'Rene. 
So  easy  and  pleasant  every  way.  Not  a  bit  stiff ! 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  237 

Mrs.  Corey  was  so  friendly  !  She  didn't  make  me 
feel  at  all  as  if  she  'd  bought  me,  and  thought  she  'd 
given  too  much ;  and  mother  held  up  her  head  as  if 
she  were  all  wool  and  a  yard  wide,  and  she  would 
just  like  to  have  anybody  deny  it." 

In  a  few  touches  of  mimicry  she  dashed  off  a 
sketch  of  the  scene  :  her  mother's  trepidation,  and 
Mrs.  Corey's  well-bred  repose  and  polite  scrutiny  of 
them  both.  She  ended  by  showing  how  she  herself 
had  sat  huddled  up  in  a  dark  corner,  mute  with 
fear. 

"  If  she  came  to  make  us  say  and  do  the  wrong 
thing,  she  must  have  gone  away  happy ;  and  it 's 
a  pity  you  weren't  here  to  help,  Irene.  I  don't 
know  that  I  aimed  to  make  a  bad  impression,  but  I 
guess  I  succeeded — even  beyond  my  deserts."  She 
laughed;  then  suddenly  she  flashed  out  in  fierce 
earnest.  "  If  I  missed  doing  anything  that  could 
make  me  as  hateful  to  her  as  she  made  herself  to 

me She  checked  herself,  and  began  to  laugh. 

Her  laugh  broke,  and  the  tears  started  into  her  eyes ; 
she  ran  out  of  the  room,  and  up  the  stairs. 

"  What — what  does  it  mean  1 "  asked  Irene  in  a 
daze. 

Mrs.  Lapham  was  still  in  the  chilly  torpor  to 
which  Mrs.  Corey's  call  had  reduced  her.  Pene 
lope's  vehemence  did  not  rouse  her.  She  only 
shook  her  head  absently,  and  said,  "  I  don't  know." 

"  Why  should  Pen  care  what  impression  she 
made  ?  I  didn't  suppose  it  would  make  any  differ 
ence  to  her  whether  Mrs.  Corey  liked  her  or  not." 


238  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  didn't,  either.  But  I  could  see  that  she  was 
just  as  nervous  as  she  could  be,  every  minute  of  the 
time.  I  guess  she  didn't  like  Mrs.  Corey  any  too 
well  from  the  start,  and  she  couldn't  seem  to  act 
like  herself." 

"  Tell  me  about  it,  mamma,"  said  Irene,  dropping 
into  a  chair. 

Mrs.  Corey  described  the  interview  to  her  hus 
band  on  her  return  home.  "  Well,  and  what  are 
your  inferences  ? "  he  asked. 

"They  were  extremely  embarrassed  and  excited 
— that  is,  the  mother.  I  don't  wish  to  do  her  in 
justice,  but  she  certainly  behaved  consciously." 

"  You  made  her  feel  so,  I  dare  say,  Anna.  I  can 
imagine  how  terrible  you  must  have  been  in  the 
character  of  an  accusing  spirit,  too  lady-like  to  say 
anything.  What  did  you  hint  1 " 

"  I  hinted  nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  descending 
to  the  weakness  of  defending  herself.  "  But  I  saw 
quite  enough  to  convince  me  that  the  girl  is  in  love 
with  Tom,  and  the  mother  knows  it." 

"  That  was  very  unsatisfactory.  I  supposed  you 
went  to  find  out  whether  Tom  was  in  love  with  the 
girl.  Was  she  as  pretty  as  ever  ?" 

"  I  didn't  see  her ;  she  was  not  at  home  ;  I  saw 
her  sister." 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  follow  you  quite,  Anna. 
But  no  matter.  What  was  the  sister  like  ?" 

"  A  thoroughly  disagreeable  young  woman." 

"What  did  she  do?"     • 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  239 

"  Nothing.  She 's  far  too  sly  for  that.  But  that 
was  the  impression." 

"Then  you  didn't  find  her  so  amusing  as  Tom 
does  ? " 

"  I  found  her  pert.  There 's  no  other  word  for  it. 
She  says  things  to  puzzle  you  and  put  you  out." 

"  Ah,  that  was  worse  than  pert,  Anna ;  that  was 
criminal.  Well,  let  us  thank  heaven  the  younger 
one  is  so  pretty." 

Mrs.  Corey  did  not  reply  directly.  "Bromfield," 
she  said,  after  a  moment  of  troubled  silence,  "I 
have  been  thinking  over  your  plan,  and  I  don't  see 
why  it  isn't  the  right  thing." 

"  What  is  my  plan  ? "  inquired  Bromfield  Corey. 

"  A  dinner." 

Her  husband  began  to  laugh.  "  Ah,  you  overdid 
the  accusing-spirit  business,  and  this  is  reparation." 
But  Mrs.  Corey  hurried  on,  with  combined  dignity 
and  anxiety — 

"  We  can't  ignore  Tom's  intimacy  with  them — it 
amounts  to  that ;  it  will  probably  continue  even  if 
it 's  merely  a  fancy,  and  we  must  seem  to  know  it ; 
whatever  comes  of  it,  we  can't  disown  it.  They  are 
very  simple,  unfashionable  people,  and  unworldly; 
but  I  can't  say  that  they  are  offensive,  unless— 
unless,"  she  added,  in  propitiation  of  her  husband's 
smile,  "  unless  the  father — how  did  you  find  the 
father  ?"  she  implored. 

"He  will  be  very  entertaining,"  said  Corey,  "if 
you  start  him  on  his  paint.  What  was  the  dis 
agreeable  daughter  like  ?  Shall  you  have  her  ? " 


240  THE  RISE  OF 

"  She 's  little  and  dark.  We  must  have  them  all," 
Mrs.  Corey  sighed.  "  Then  you  don't  think  a  dinner 
would  do  ?" 

"Oh  yes,  I  do.  As  you  say,  we  can't  disown 
Tom's  relation  to  them,  whatever  it  is.  We  had 
much  better  recognise  it,  and  make  the  best  of  the 
inevitable.  I  think  a  Lapham  dinner  would  be  de 
lightful."  He  looked  at  her  with  delicate  irony  in 
his  voice  and  smile,  and  she  fetched  another  sigh, 
so  deep  and  sore  now  that  he  laughed  outright. 
"  Perhaps,"  he  suggested,  "  it  would  be  the  best 
way  of  curing  Tom  of  his  fancy,  if  he  has  one.  He 
has  been  seeing  her  with  the  dangerous  advantages 
which  a  mother  knows  how  to  give  her  daughter  in 
the  family  circle,  and  with  no  means  of  comparing 
her  with  other  girls.  You  must  invite  several  other 
very  pretty  girls." 

"  Do  you  really  think  so,  Bromfield  1 "  asked  Mrs. 
Corey,  taking  courage  a  little.  "That  might  do," 
But  her  spirits  visibly  sank  again.  "I  don't  know 
any  other  girl  half  so  pretty." 

"Well,  then,  better  bred." 

"She  is  very  lady-like,  very  modest,  and  pleas- 
ing." 

"  Well,  more  cultivated." 

"  Tom  doesn't  get  on  with  such  people." 

"  Oh,  you  wish  him  to  marry  her,  I  see." 

«  NO,  no " 

"  Then  you  'd  better  give  the  dinner  to  bring 
them  together,  to  promote  the  affair." 

"  You  know  I  don't  want  to  do  that,  Bromfield. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  241 

But  I  feel  that  we  must  do  something.  If  we  don't, 
it  has  a  clandestine  appearance.  It  isn't  just  to 
them.  A  dinner  won't  leave  us  in  any  worse 
position,  and  may  leave  us  in  a  better.  Yes,"  said 
Mrs.  Corey,  after  another  thoughtful  interval,  "  we 
must  have  them — have  them  all.  It  could  be  very 
simple." 

"  Ah,  you  can't  give  a  dinner  under  a  bushel,  if  I 
take  your  meaning,  my  dear.  If  we  do  this  at  all, 
we  mustn't  do  it  as  if-  we  were  ashamed  of  it.  We 
must  ask  people  to  meet  them." 

"  Yes,"  sighed  Mrs.  Corey.  "  There  are  not  many 
people  in  town  yet,"  she  added,  with  relief  that  caused 
her  husband  another  smile.  "  There  really  seems  a 
sort  of  fatality  about  it,"  she  concluded  religiously. 

"  Then  you  had  better  not  struggle  against  it. 
Go  and  reconcile  Lily  and  Nanny  to  it  as  soon  as 
possible." 

Mrs.  Corey  blanched  a  little.  "  But  don't  you 
think  it  will  be  the  best  thing,  Bromfield  1 " 

"  I  do  indeed,  my  dear.  The  only  thing  that 
shakes  my  faith  in  the  scheme  is  the  fact  that  I  first 
suggested  it.  But  if  you  have  adopted  it,  it  must 
be  all  right,  Anna.  I  can't  say  that  I  expected  it." 

"  No,"  said  his  wife,  "  it  wouldn't  do." 


Q 


XIII. 

HAVING  distinctly  given  up-  the  project  of  asking 
the  Laphams  to  dinner,  Mrs.  Corey  was  able  to  carry 
it  out  with  the  courage  of  sinners  who  have  sacrificed 
to  virtue  by  frankly  acknowledging  its  superiority  to 
their  intended  transgression.  She  did  not  question 
but  the  Laphams  would  come ;  and  she  only  doubted 
as  to  the  people  whom  she  should  invite  to  meet 
them.  She  opened  the  matter  with  some  trepidation 
to  her  daughters,  but  neither  of  them  opposed  her ; 
they  rather  looked  at  the  scheme  from  her  own  point 
of  view,  and  agreed  with  her  that  nothing  had  really 
yet  been  done  to  wipe  out  the  obligation  to  the  Lap- 
hams  helplessly  contracted  the  summer  before,  and 
strengthened  by  that  ill-advised  application  to  Mrs. 
Lapham  for  charity.  Not  only  the  principal  of  their 
debt  of.  gratitude  remained,  but  the  accruing  interest. 
They  said,  What  harm  could  giving  the  dinner  pos 
sibly  do  them  ?  They  might  ask  any  or  all  of  their 
acquaintance  without  disadvantage  to  themselves ; 
but  it  would  be  perfectly  easy  to  give  the  dinner 
just  the  character  they  chose,  and  still  flatter  the 
ignorance  of  the  Laphams.  The  trouble  would  be 

242 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  243 

with  Tom,  if  he  were  really  interested  in  the  girl ; 
but  he  could  not  say  anything  if  they  made  it  a 
family  dinner;  he  could  not  feel  anything.  They 
had  each  turned  in  her  own  mind,  as  it  appeared 
from  a  comparison  of  ideas,  to  one  of  the  most  com 
prehensive  of  those  cousinships  which  form  the 
admiration  and  terror  of  the  adventurer  in  Boston 
society.  He  finds  himself  hemmed  in  and  left  out 
at  every  turn  by  ramifications  that  forbid  him  all 
hope  of  safe  personality  in  his  comments  on  people  ; 
he  is  never  less  secure  than  when  he  hears  some 
given  Bostonian  denouncing  or  ridiculing  another. 
If  he  will  be  advised,  he  will  guard  himself  from  con 
curring  in  these  criticisms,  however  just  they  appear, 
for  the  probability  is  that  their  object  is  a  cousin  of 
not  more  than  one  remove  from  the  censor.  When 
the  alien  hears  a  group  of  Boston  ladies  calling  one 
another,  and  speaking  of  all  their  gentlemen  friends, 
by  the  familiar  abbreviations  of  their  Christian 
names,  he  must  feel  keenly  the  exile  to  which  he 
was  born ;  but  he  is  then,  at  least,  in  comparatively 
little  danger ;  while  these  latent  and  tacit  cousin- 
ships  open  pitfalls  at  every  step  around  him,  in  a 
society  where  Middlesexes  have  married  Essexes 
and  produced  Suffolks  for  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years. 

These  conditions,  however,  so  perilous  to  the 
foreigner,  are  a  source  of  strength  and  security  to 
those  native  to  them.  An  uncertain  acquaintance 
may  be  so  effectually  involved  in  the  meshes  of  such 
a  cousinship,  as  never  to  be  heard  of  outside  of  it 


244  THE  RISE  OF 

and  tremendous  stories  are  told  of  people  who 
have  spent  a  whole  winter  in  Boston,  in  a  whirl  of 
gaiety,  and  who,  the  original  guests  of  the  Suffolks, 
discover  upon  reflection  that  they  have  met  no 
one  but  Essexes  and  Middlesexes. 

Mrs.  Corey's  brother  James  came  first  into  her 
mind,  and  she  thought  with  uncommon  toleration  of 
the  easy-going,  uncritical,  good-nature  of  his  wife. 
James  Bellingham  had  been  the  adviser  of  her  son 
throughout,  and  might  be  said  to  have  actively  pro 
moted  his  connection  with  Lapham.  She  thought 
next  of  the  widow  of  her  cousin,  Henry  Bellingham, 
who  had  let  her  daughter  marry  that  Western  steam 
boat  man,  and  was  fond  of  her  son-in-law  ;  she  might 
be  expected  at  least  to  endure  the  paint-king  and  his 
family.  The  daughters  insisted  so  strongly  upon 
Mrs.  Bellingham's  son  Charles,  that  Mrs.  Corey  put 
him  down — if  he  were  in  town  ;  he  might  be  in  Cen 
tral  America ;  he  got  on  with  all  sorts  of  people.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  she  might  stop  at  this :  four 
Laphams,  five  Coreys,  and  four  Bellinghams  were 
enough. 

"That  makes  thirteen,"  said  Nanny.  "You  can 
have  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sewell." 

"  Yes,  that  is  a  good  idea,"  assented  Mrs.  Corey. 
"  He  is  our  minister,  and  it  is  very  proper." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  don't  have  Kobert  Chase. 
It  is  a  pity  he  shouldn't  see  her — for  the  colour." 

"I  don't  quite  like  the  idea  of  that,"  said  Mrs. 
Corey  ;  "but  we  can  have  him  too,  if  it  won't  make 
too  many."  The  painter  had  married  into  a  poorer 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  245 

branch  of  the  Coreys,  and  his  wife  was  dead.  "  Is 
there  any  one  else  ?" 

"  There  is  Miss  Kingsbury." 

"  We  have  had  her  so'  much.  She  will  begin  to 
think  we  are  using  her." 

"  She  won't  mind  ;  she 's  so  good-natured." 

"  Well,  then,"  the  mother  summed  up,  "  there  are 
four  Laphams,  five  Coreys,  four  Bellinghams,  one 
Chase,  and  one  Kingsbury — fifteen.  Oh  !  and  two 
Sewells.  Seventeen.  Ten  ladies  and  seven  gentle 
men.  It  doesn't  balance  very  well,  and  it's  too 
large." 

"Perhaps  some  of  the  ladies  won't  come,"  sug 
gested  Lily. 

"  Oh,  the  ladies  always  come,"  said  Nanny. 

Their  mother  reflected.  "Well,  I  will  ask  them. 
The  ladies  will  refuse  in  time  to  let  us  pick  up  some 
gentlemen  somewhere ;  some  more  artists.  Why  ! 
we  must  have  Mr.  Seymour,  the  architect ;  he 's  a 
bachelor,  and  he 's  building  their  house,  Tom  says." 

Her  voice  fell  a  little  when  she  mentioned  her 
son's  name,  and  she  told  him  of  her  plan,  when 
he  came  home  in  the  evening,  with  evident  mis 
giving. 

"  What  are  you  doing  it  for,  mother  1"  he  asked, 
looking  at  her  with  his  honest  eyes. 

She  dropped  her  own  in  a  little  confusion.  "  I 
won't  do  it  at  all,  my  dear,"  she  said,  "  if  you  don't 

approve.  But  I  thought You  know  we  have 

never  made  any  proper  acknowledgment  of  their 
kindness  to  us  at  Baie  St.  Paul.  Then  in  the 


246  THE  RISE  OF  . 

winter,  I  'm  ashamed  to  say,  I  got  money  from  her 
for  a  charity  I  was  interested  in;  and  I  hate  the 
idea  of  merely  using  people  in  that  way.  And  now 
your  having  been  at  their  house  this  summer — we 
can't  seem  to  disapprove  of  that ;  and  your  business 
relations  to  him " 

"  Yes,  I  see,"  said  Corey.  "  Do  you  think  it 
amounts  to  a  dinner  ?" 

"Why,  I  don't  know,"  returned  his  mother. 
"  We  shall  have  hardly  any  one  out  of  our  family 
connection." 

"  Well,"  Corey  assented,  "  it  might  do.  I  suppose 
what  you  wish  is  to  give  them  a  pleasure." 

"  Why,  certainly.  Don't  you  think  they  'd  like  to 
come?" 

"  Oh,  they  'd  like  to  come ;  but  whether  it  would 
be  a  pleasure  after  they  were  here  is  another  thing. 
I  should  have  said  that  if  you  wanted  to  have  them, 
they  would  enjoy  better  being  simply  asked  to  meet 
our  own  immediate  family." 

"  That 's  what  I  thought  of  in  the  first  place,  but 
your  father  seemed  to  think  it  implied  a  social  dis 
trust  of  them ;  and  we  couldn't  afford  to  have  that 
appearance,  even  to  ourselves." 

"  Perhaps  he  was  right." 

"  And  besides,  it  might  seem  a  little  significant." 

Corey  seemed  inattentive  to  this  consideration. 
"  Whom  did  you  think  of  asking  1 "  His  mother 
repeated  the  names.  "  Yes,  that  would  do,"  he 
said,  with  a  vague  dissatisfaction. 

"  I  won't  have  it  at  all,  if  you  don't  wish,  Tom." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  247 

"  Oh  yes,  have  it ;  perhaps  you  ought.  Yes,  I 
dare  say  it 's  right.  What  did  you  mean  by  a  family 
dinner  seeming  significant  1 " 

His  mother  hesitated.  When  it  came  to  that,  she 
did  not  like  to  recognise  in  his  presence  the  anxieties 
that  had  troubled  her.  But  "I  don't  know,"  she 
said,  since  she  must.  "I  shouldn't  want  to  give 
that  young  girl,  or  her  mother,  the  idea  that  we 
wished  to  make  more  of  the  acquaintance  than — 
than  you  did,  Tom." 

He  looked  at  her  aosent-mindedly,  as  if  he  did 
not  take  her  meaning.  But  he  said,  "Oh  yes,  of 
course,"  and  Mrs.  Corey,  in  the  uncertainty  in  which 
she  seemed  destined  to  remain  concerning  this  affair, 
went  off  and  wrote  her  invitation  to  Mrs.  Lapham. 
Later  in  the  evening,  when  they  again  found  them 
selves  alone,  her  son  said,  "  I  don't  think  I  under 
stood  you,  mother,  in  regard  to  the  Laphams.  I 
think  I  do  now.  I  certainly  don't  wish  you  to  make 
more  of  the  acquaintance  than  I  have  done.  It 
wouldn't  be  right;  it  might  be  very  unfortunate. 
Don't  give  the  dinner  !" 

"  It 's  too  late  now,  my  son,"  said  Mrs.  Corey. 
"I  sent  my  note  to  Mrs.  Lapham  an  hour  ago." 
Her  courage  rose  at  the  trouble  which  showed  in 
Corey's  face.  "But  don't  be  annoyed  by  it,  Tom. 
It  isn't  a  family  dinner,  you  know,  and  everything 
can  be  managed  without  embarrassment.  If  we 
take  up  the  affair  at  this  point,  you  will  seem  to 
have  been  merely  acting  for  us ;  and  they  can't 
possibly  understand  anything  more." 


248  THE  RISE  OP 

"  Well,  well !  Let  it  go  !  I  dare  say  it 's  all  right. 
At  any  rate,  it  can't  be  helped  now." 

"  I  don't  wish  to  help  it,  Tom,"  said  Mrs.  Corey, 
with  a  cheerfulness  which  the  thought  of  the  Laphams 
had  never  brought  her  before.  "  I  am  sure  it  is 
quite  fit  and  proper,  and  we  can  make  them  have  a 
very  pleasant  time.  They  are  good,  inoffensive 
people,  and  we  owe  it  to  ourselves  not  to  be  afraid 
to  show  that  we  have  felt  their  kindness  to  us,  and 
his  appreciation  of  you." 

"Well,"  consented  Corey.  The  trouble  that  his 
mother  had  suddenly  cast  off  was  in  his  tone ;  but 
she  was  not  sorry.  It  was  quite  time  that  he  should 
think  seriously  of  his  attitude  toward  these  people  if 
he  had  not  thought  of  it  before,  but,  according  to 
his  father's  theory,  had  been  merely  dangling. 

It  was  a  view  of  her  son's  character  that  could 
hardly  have  pleased  her  in  different  circumstances, 
yet  it  was  now  unquestionably  a  consolation  if  not 
wholly  a  pleasure.  If  she  considered  the  Laphams 
at  all,  it  was  with  the  resignation  which  we  feel  at 
the  evils  of  others,  even  when  they  have  not  brought 
them  on  themselves. 

Mrs.  Lapham,  for  her  part,  had  spent  the  hours 
between  Mrs.  Corey's  visit  and  her  husband  's  coming 
home  from  business  in  reaching  the  same  conclusion 
with  regard  to  Corey ;  and  her  spirits  were  at  the 
lowest  when  they  sat  down  to  supper.  Irene  was 
downcast  with  her  ;  Penelope  was  purposely  gay  ;  and 
the  Colonel  was  beginning,  after  his  first  plate  of  the 
boiled  ham, — which,  bristling  with  cloves,  rounded 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  249 

its  bulk  on  a  wide  platter  before  him, — to  take  note 
of  the  surrounding  mood,  when  the  door-bell  jingled 
peremptorily,  and  the  girl  left  waiting  on  the  table 
to  go  and  answer  it.  She  returned  at  once  with  a 
note  for  Mrs.  Lapham,  which  she  read,  and  then, 
after  a  helpless  survey  of  her  family,  read  again. 

"Why,  what  is  it,  mamma?"  asked  Irene,  while 
the  Colonel,  who  had  taken  up  his  carving-knife  for 
another  attack  on  the  ham,  held  it  drawn  half  across 
it. 

"  Why,  /  don't  know  what  it  does  mean,"  answered 
Mrs.  Lapham  tremulously,  and  she  let  the  girl  take 
the  note  from  her. 

Irene  ran  it  over,  and  then  turned  to  the  name  at 
the  end  with  a  joyful  cry  and  a  flush  that  burned 
to  the  top  of  her  forehead.  Then  she  began  to  read 
it  once  more. 

The  Colonel  dropped  his  knife  and  frowned  im 
patiently,  and  Mrs.  Lapham  said,  "  You  read  it  out 
loud,  if  you  know  what  to  make  of  it,  Irene."  But 
Irene,  with  a  nervous  scream  of  protest,  handed  it 
to  her  father,  who  performed  the  office. 

"  DEAR  MRS.  LAPHAM  : 

"  Will  you  and  General  Lapham " 

"I  didn't  know  I  was  a  general,"  grumbled 
Lapham.  "  I  guess  I  shall  have  to  be  looking  up 
my  back  pay.  Who  is  it  writes  this,  anyway  ?  "  he 
asked,  turning  the  letter  over  for  the  signature. 

"  Oh,  never  mind.  Read  it  through  ! "  cried  his 
wife,  with  a  kindling  glance  of  triumph  at  Penelope, 
and  he  resumed — 


250  THE  RISE  OF 

"  — and  your  daughters  give  us  the  pleasure  of  your 
company  at  dinner  on  Thursday,  the  28th,  at  half- 
past  six. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"ANNAB.  COREY." 

The  brief  invitation  had  been  spread  over  two 
pages,  and  the  Colonel  had  difficulties  with  the 
signature  which  he  did  not  instantly  surmount. 
When  he  had  made  out  the  name  and  pronounced 
it,  he  looked  across  at  his  wife  for  an  explanation. 

"/  don't  know  what  it  all  means,"  she  said, 
shaking  her  head  and  speaking  with  a  pleased 
flutter.  "  She  was  here  this  afternoon,  and  I  should 
have  said  she  had  come  to  see  how  bad  she  could 
make  us  feel.  I  declare  I  never  felt  so  put  down  in 
my  life  by  anybody." 

"  Why,  what,  did  she  do  ?  What  did  she  say  ? " 
Lapham  was  ready,  in  his  dense  pride,  to  resent  any 
affront  to  his  blood,  but  doubtful,  with  the  evidence 
of  this  invitation  to  the  contrary,  if  any  affront  had 
been  offered.  Mrs.  Lapham  tried  to  tell  him,  but 
there  was  really  nothing  tangible ;  and  when  she 
came  to  put  it  into  words,  she  could  not  make  out 
a  case.  Her  husband  listened  to  her  excited  at 
tempt,  and  then  he  said,  with  judicial  superiority, 
"  /  guess  nobody 's  been  trying  to  make  you  feel  bad, 
Persis.  What  would  she  go  right  home  and  invite 
you  to  dinner  for,  if  she  'd  acted  the  way  you  say  ? " 

In  this  view  it  did  seem  improbable,  and  Mrs. 
Lapham  was  shaken.  She  could  only  say,  "  Pene 
lope  felt  just  the  way  I  did  about  it" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  251 

Lapliam  looked  at  the  girl,  who  said,  "  Oh,  I  can't 
prove  it !  I  begin  to  think  it  never  happened.  I 
guess  it  didn't." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  her  father,  and  he  sat  frowning 
thoughtfully  a  while — ignoring  her  mocking  irony,  or 
choosing  to  take  her  seriously.  "You  can't  really 
put  your  finger  on  anything,"  he  said  to  his  wife, 
"  and  it  ain't  likely  there  is  anything.  Anyway, 
she  's  done  the  proper  thiiig  by  you  now." 

Mrs.  Lapham  faltered  between  her  lingering  re 
sentment  and  the  appeals  of  her  flattered  anity. 
She  looked  from  Penelope's  impassive  face  to  the 
eager  eyes  of  Irene.  "  Well — just  as  you  say,  Silas. 
I  don't  know  as  she  ivas  so  very  bad.  I  guess  may 
be  she  was  embarrassed  some " 

"  That 's  what  I  told  you,  mamma,  from  the  start," 
interrupted  Irene.  "  Didn't  I  tell  you  she  didn't 
mean  anything  by  it  ?  It 's  just  the  way  she  acted 
at  Baie  St.  Paul,  when  she  got  well  enough  to  realise 
what  you  'd  done  for  her  ! " 

Penelope  broke  into  a  laugh.  "  Is  that  her  way 
of  showing  her  gratitude  ?  I  'm  sorry  I  didn't  un 
derstand  that  before." 

Irene  made  no  effort  to  reply.  She  merely  looked 
from  her  mother  to  her  father  with  a  grieved  face 
for  their  protection,  and  Lapham  said,  "  When  we  've 
done  supper,  you  answer  her,  Persis.  Say  we'll 
come." 

"  With  one  exception,"  said  Penelope. 

"  What  do  you  mean  1 "  demanded  her  father, 
with  a  mouth  full  of  ham. 


252  THE  RISE  OF 

"Oh,  nothing  of  importance.  Merely  that  I'm 
not  going." 

Lapham  gave  himself  time  to  swallow  his  morsel, 
and  his  rising  wrath  went  down  with  it.  "  I  guess 
you  '11  change  your  mind  when  the  time  comes,"  he 
said.  "  Anyway,  Persis,  you  say  we  '11  all  come,  and 
then,  if  Penelope  don't  want  to  go,  you  can  excuse 
her  after  we  get  there.  That 's  the  best  way." 

None  of  them,  apparently,  saw  any  reason  why 
the  affair  should  not  be  left  in  this  way,  or  had  a 
sense  of  the  awful  and  binding  nature  of  a  dinner 
engagement.  If  she  believed  that  Penelope  would 
not  finally  change  her  mind  and  go,  no  doubt  Mrs. 
Lapham  thought  that  Mrs.  Corey  would  easily  excuse 
her  absence.  She  did  not  find  it  so  simple  a  matter 
to  accept  the  invitation.  Mrs.  Corey  had  said  "Dear 
Mrs.  Lapham,"  but  Mrs.  Lapham  had  her  doubts 
whether  it  would  not  be  a  servile  imitation  to  say 
"  Dear  Mrs.  Corey "  in  return ;  and  she  was  tor 
mented  as  to  the  proper  phrasing  throughout  and 
the  precise  temperature  which  she  should  impart  to 
her  politeness.  She  wrote  an  unpractised,  unchar 
acteristic  round  hand,  the  same  in  which  she  used  to 
set  the  children's  copies  at  school,  and  she  subscribed 
herself,  after  some  hesitation  between  her  husband's 
given  name  and  her  own,  "Yours  truly,  Mrs.  S. 
Lapham." 

Penelope  had  gone  to  her  room,  without  waiting  to 
be  asked  to  advise  or  criticise ;  but  Irene  had  decided 
upon  the  paper,  and  on  the  whole,  Mrs.  Lapham 's 
note  made  a  very  decent  appearance  on  the  page. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  253 

When  the  furnace-man  came,  the  Colonel  sent  him 
out  to  post  it  in  the  box  at  the  corner  of  the  square. 
He  had  determined  not  to  say  anything  more  about 
the  matter  before  the  girls,  not  choosing  to  let  them 
see  that  he  was  elated ;  he  tried  to  give  the  effect  of 
its  being  an  everyday  sort  of  thing,  abruptly  closing 
the  discussion  with  his  order  to  Mrs.  Lapham  to 
accept ;  but  he  had  remained  swelling  behind  his 
newspaper  during  her  prolonged  struggle  with  her 
note,  and  he  could  no  longer  hide  his  elation  when 
Irene  followed  her  sister  upstairs. 

"  Well,  Pers,"  he  demanded,  "  what  do  you  say 
now  1 " 

Mrs.  Lapham  had  been  sobered  into  something  of 
her  former  misgiving  by  her  difficulties  with  her 
note.  "  Well,  I  don't  know  what  to  say.  I  declare, 
I'm  all  mixed  up  about  it,  and  I  don't  know  as 
we  've  begun  as  we  can  carry  out  in  promising  to  go. 
I  presume,"  she  sighed,  "  that  we  can  all  send  some 
excuse  at  the  last  moment,  if  we  don't  want  to  go." 

"  I  guess  we  can  carry  out,  and  I  guess  we  shan't 
want  to  send  any  excuse,"  bragged  the  Colonel. 
"  If  we  're  ever  going  to  be  anybody  at  all,  we  've 
got  to  go  and  see  how  it 's  done.  I  presume  we  Ve 
got  to  give  some  sort  of  party  when  we  get  into  the 
new  house,  and  this  gives  the  chance  to  ask  'em  back 
again.  You  can't  complain  now  but  what  they  've 
made  the  advances,  Persis  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham  lifelessly ;  "  I  wonder 
why  they  wanted  to  do  it.  Oh,  I  suppose  it 's  all 
right,"  she  added  in  deprecation  of  the  anger  with 


254  THE  RISE  OF 

her  humility  which  she  saw  rising  in  her  husband's 
face ;  "  but  if  it 's  all  going  to  be  as  much  trouble  as 
that  letter,  I  ;d  rather  be  whipped.  /  don't  know 
what  I  'm  going  to  wear ;  or  the  girls  either.  I  do 
wonder — I  've  heard  that  people  go  to  dinner  in  low- 
necks.  Do  you  suppose  it's  the  custom  1" 

"  How  should  /  know  1 "  demanded  the  Colonel. 
"  I  guess  you  Ve  got  clothes  enough.  Any  rate,  you 
needn't  fret  about  it.  You  just  go  round  to  White's 
or  Jordan  &  Marsh's,  and  ask  for  a  dinner  dress. 
I  guess  that  '11  settle  it ;  they  '11  know.  Get  some 
of  them  imported  dresses.  I  see  'em  in  the  window 
every  time  I  pass  ;  lots  of  'em," 

"  Oh,  it  ain't  the  dress  ! "  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  I 
don't  suppose  but  what  we  could  get  along  with  that; 
and  I  want  to  do  the  best  we  can  for  the  children ; 
but  /  don't  know  what  we  're  going  to  talk  about  to 
those  people  when  we  get  there.  We  haven't  got 
anything  in  common  with  them.  Oh,  I  don't  say 
they  're  any  better,"  she  again  made  haste  to  say  in 
arrest  of  her  husband's  resentment.  "I  don't  be 
lieve  they  are ;  and  I  don't  see  why  they  should  be. 
And  there  ain't  anybody  has  got  a  better  right  to 
hold  up  their  head  than  you  have,  Silas.  You've 
got  plenty  of  money,  and  you  've  made  every  cent 
of  it.* 

"  I  guess  I  shouldn't  amounted  to  much  without 
you,  Persis,"  interposed  Lapham,  moved  to  this 
justice  by  her  praise. 

"Oh,  don't  talk  about  me/"  protested  the  wife. 
"  Now  that  you  've  made  it  all  right  about  Kogers, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  255 

there  ain't  a  thing  in  this  world  against  yon.  But 
still,  for  all  that,  I  can  see — and  I  can  feel  it  when  I 
can't  see  it — that  we  're  different  from  those  people. 
They  're  well-meaning  enough,  and  they  'd  excuse  it, 
I  presume,  but  we're  too  old  to  learn  to  be  like 
them." 

"  The  children  ain't,"  said   Lapham  shrewdly. 

"No,  the  children  ain't,"  admitted  his  wife,  "and 
that 's  the  only  thing  that  reconciles  me  to  it." 

"  You  see  how  pleased  Irene  looked  when  I  read 
it?" 

"  Yes,  she  was  pleased." 

"And  I  guess  Penelope  '11  think  better  of  it  before 
the  time  comes." 

"  Oh  yes,  we  do  it  for  them.  But  whether  we  're 
doing  the  best  thing  for  'em,  goodness  knows.  I'm 
not  saying  anything  against  him.  Irene  '11  be  a  lucky 
girl  to  get  him,  if  she  wants  him.  But  there  !  I  'd 
ten  times  rather  she  was  going  to  marry  such  a 
fellow  as  you  were,  Si,  that  had  to  make  every  inch 
of  his  own  way,  and  she  had  to  help  him.  It's  in 
her ! " 

Lapham  laughed  aloud  for  pleasure  in  his  wife's 
fondness;  but  neither  of  them  wished  that  he  should 
respond  directly  to  it.  "  I  guess,  if  it  wan't  for  me, 
he  wouldn't  have  a  much  easier  time.  But  don't 
you  fret !  It 's  all  coming  out  right.  That  dinner 
ain't  a  thing  for  you  to  be  uneasy  about.  It  '11  pass 
off  perfectly  easy  and  natural." 

Lapham  did  not  keep  his  courageous  mind  quite 
to  the  end  of  the  week  that  followed.  It  was  his 


256  THE  RISE  OF 

theory  not  to  let  Corey  see  that  he  was  set  up  about 
the  invitation,  and  when  the  young  man  said  politely 
that  his  mother  was  glad  they  were  able  to  come, 
Lapham  was  very  short  with  him.  He  said  yes,  he 
believed  that  Mrs.  Lapham  and  the  girls  were  going. 
Afterward  he  was  afraid  Corey  might  not  under 
stand  that  he  was  coming  too ;  but  he  did  not  know 
how  to  approach  the  subject  again,  and  Corey  did 
not,  so  he  let  it  pass.  It  worried  him  to  see  all  the 
preparation  that  his  wife  and  Irene  were  making, 
and  he  tried  to  laugh  at  them  for  it ;  and  it  worried 
him  to  find  that  Penelope  was  making  no  preparation 
at  all  for  herself,  but  only  helping  the  others.  He 
asked  her  what  should  she  do  if  she  changed  her 
mind  at  the  last  moment  and  concluded  to  go,  and 
she  said  she  guessed  she  should  not  change  her 
mind,  but  if  she  did,  she  would  go  to  White's  with 
him  and  get  him  to  choose  her  an  imported  dress, 
he  seemed  to  like  them  so  much.  He  was  too  proud 
to  mention  the  subject  again  to  her. 

Finally,  all  that  dress-making  in  the  house  began 
to  scare  him  with  vague  apprehensions  in  regard  to 
his  own  dress.  As  soon  as  he  had  determined  to  go, 
an  ideal  of  the  figure  in  which  he  should  go  pre 
sented  itself  to  his  mind.  He  should  not  wear  any 
dress-coat,  because,  for  one  thing,  he  considered  that 
a  man  looked  like  a  fool  in  a  dress-coat,  and,  for 
another  thing,  he  had  none — had  none  on  principle. 
He  would  go  in  a  frock-coat  and  black  pantaloons, 
and  perhaps  a  white  waistcoat,  but  a  black  cravat 
anyway.  But  as  soon  as  he  developed  this  ideal  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  257 

his  family,  which  he  did  in  pompous  disdain  of  their 
anxieties  about  their  own  dress,  they  said  he  should 
not  go  so.  Irene  reminded  him  that  he  was  the  only 
person  without  a  dress-coat  at  a  corps  reunion  dinner 
which  he  had  taken  her  to  some  years  before,  and 
she  remembered  feeling  awfully  about  it  at  the  time. 
Mrs.  Lapham,  who  would  perhaps  have  agreed  of 
herself,  shook  her  head  with  misgiving.  "  I  don't 
see  but  what  you'll  have  to  get  you  one,  Si,"  she 
said.  "  I  don't  believe  they  ever  go  without  'em  to  a 
private  house." 

He  held  out  openly,  but  on  his  way  home  the 
next  day,  in  a  sudden  panic,  he  cast  anchor  before 
his  tailor's  door  and  got  measured  for  a  dress-coat. 
After  that  he  began  to  be  afflicted  about  his  waist 
coat,  concerning  which  he  had  hitherto  been  airily 
indifferent.  He  tried  to  get  opinion  out  of  his 
family,  but  they  were  not  so  clear  about  it  as  they 
were  about  the  frock.  It  ended  in  their  buying  a 
book  of  etiquette,  which  settled  the  question  ad 
versely  to  a  white  waistcoat.  The  author,  however, 
after  being  very  explicit  in  telling  them  not  to  eat 
with  their  knives,  and  above  all  not  to  pick  their 
teeth  with  their  forks, — a  thing  which  he  said  no 
lady  or  gentleman  ever  did, — was  still  far  from  de 
cided  as  to  the  kind  of  cravat  Colonel  Lapham  ought 
to  wear :  shaken  on  other  points,  Lapham  had  begun 
to  waver  also  concerning  the  black  cravat.  As  to 
the  question  of  gloves  for  the  Colonel,  which  sud 
denly  flashed  upon  him  one  evening,  it  appeared 
never  to  have  entered  the  thoughts  of  the  etiquette 

R 


258  THE  RISE  OF 

man,  as  Lapham  called  him.  Other  authors  on  the 
same  subject  were  equally  silent,  and  Irene  could  only 
remember  having  heard,  in  some  vague  sort  of  way, 
that  gentlemen  did  not  wear  gloves  so  much  any  more. 

Drops  of  perspiration  gathered  on  Lapham 's  fore 
head  in  the  anxiety  of  the  debate ;  he  groaned,  and 
he  swore  a  little  in  the  compromise  profanity  which 
he  used. 

"I  declare,"  said  Penelope,  where  she  sat  pur- 
blindly  sewing  on  a  bit  of  dress  for  Irene,  "  the 
Colonel's  clothes  are  as  much  trouble  as  anybody's. 
Why  don't  you  go  to  Jordan  &  Marsh's  and  order 
one  of  the  imported  dresses  for  yourself,  father  ? " 
That  gave  them  all  the  relief  of  a  laugh  over  it,  the 
Colonel  joining  in  piteously. 

He  had  an  awful  longing  to  find  out  from  Corey 
how  he  ought  to  go.  He  formulated  and  repeated 
over  to  himself  an  apparently  careless  question,  such 
as,  "  Oh,  by  the  way,  Corey,  where  do  you  get  your 
gloves  1 "  This  would  naturally  lead  to  some  talk 
on  the  subject,  which  would,  if  properly  managed, 
clear  up  the  whole  trouble.  But  Lapham  found  that 
he  would  rather  die  than  ask  this  question,  or  any 
question  that  would  bring  up  the  dinner  again. 
Corey  did  not  recur  to  it,  and  Lapham  avoided  the 
matter  with  positive  fierceness.  He  shunned  talking 
with  Corey  at  all,  and  suffered  in  grim  silence. 

One  night,  before  they  fell  asleep,  his  wife  said  to 
him,  "  I  was  reading  in  one  of  those  books  to-day, 
and  I  don't  believe  but  what  we  Ve  made  a  mistake 
if  Pen  holds  out  that  she  won't  go." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  259 

"  Why  ?"  demanded  Lapham,  in  the  dismay  which 
beset  him  at  every  fresh  recurrence  to  the  subject. 

"The  book  says  that  it's  very  impolite  not  to 
answer  a  dinner  invitation  promptly.  Well,  we  've 
done  that  all  right,- — at  first  I  didn't  know  but  what 
we  had  been  a  little  too  quick,  may  be, — but  then  it 
says  if  you  're  not  going,  that  it 's  the  height  of  rude 
ness  not  to  let  them  know  at  once,  so  that  they  can 
fill  your  place  at  the  table." 

The  Colonel  was  silent  for  a  while.  "  Well,  I'm. 
dumned,"  he  said  finally,  "  if  there  seems  to  be  any 
end  to  this  thing.  If  it  was  to  do  over  again,  I  'd 
say  no  for  all  of  us." 

"  I  Ve  wished  a  hundred  times  they  hadn't  asked 
us  ;  but  it 's  too  late  to  think  about  that  now.  The 
question  is,  what  are  we  going  to  do  about  Pene 
lope  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  guess  she  11  go,  at  the  last  moment." 

"  She  says  she  won't.  She  took  a  prejudice 
against  Mrs.  Corey  that  day,  and  she  can't  seem  to 
get  over  it." 

"  Well,  then,  hadn't  you  better  write  in  the  morn 
ing,  as  soon  as  you  're  up,  that  she  ain't  coming  1 " 

Mrs.  Lapham  sighed  helplessly.  "I  shouldn't 
know  h-ow  to  get  it  in.  It 's  so  late  now ;  I  don't 
see  how  I  could  have  the  face." 

"  Well,  then,  she 's  got  to  go,  that 's  all." 

"  She 's  set  she  won't." 

.  "  And  I  'm  set  she  shall,"  said  Lapham  with  the 
loud  obstinacy  of  a  man  whose  women  always  have 
their  way. 


260  THE  RISE  OF 

Mrs.  Lapham  was  not  supported  by  the  sturdiness 
of  his  proclamation. 

But  she  did  not  know  how  to  do  what  she  knew 
she  ought  to  do  about  Penelope,  and  she  let  matters 
drift.  After  all,  the  child  had  a  right  to  stay  at 
home  if  she  did  not  wish  to  go.  That  was  what 
Mrs.  Lapham  felt,  and  what  she  said  to  her  husband 
next  morning,  bidding  him  let  Penelope  alone,  unless 
she  chose  herself  to  go.  She  said  it  was  too  late 
now  to  do  anything,  and  she  must  make  the  best 
excuse  she  could  when  she  saw  Mrs.  Corey.  She 
began  to  wish  that  Irene  and  her  father  would  go 
and  excuse  her  too.  She  could  not  help  saying  this, 
and  then  she  and  Lapham  had  some  unpleasant  words. 

"Look  here  !"  he  cried.  "Who  wanted  to  go  in 
for  these  people  in  the  first  place  ?  Didn't  you  come 
home  full  of  'em  last  year,  and  want  me  to  sell  out 
here  and  move  somewheres  else  because  it  didn't  seem 
to  suit  'em  ?  And  now  you  want  to  put  it  all  on  me ! 
I  ain't  going  to  stand  it." 

"Hush!"  said  his  wife.  "Do  you  want  to  raise 
the  house  ?  I  didn't  put  it  on  you,  as  you  say.  You 
took  it  on  yourself.  Ever  since  that  fellow  happened 
to  come  into  the  new  house  that  day,  you  've  been 
perfectly  crazy  to  get  in  with  them.  And  now 
you  're  so  afraid  you  shall  do  something  wrong  be 
fore  'em,  you  don't  hardly  dare  to  say  your  life's 
your  own.  I  declare,  if  you  pester  me  any  more 
about  those  gloves,  Silas  Lapham,  I  won't  go." 

"Do  you  suppose  I  want  to  go  on  my  own 
account  1 "  he  demanded  furiously. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  261 

"  No,"  she  admitted.  "  Of  course  I  don't.  I  know 
very  well  that  you  're  doing  it  for  Irene ;  but,  for 
goodness  gracious'  sake,  don't  worry  our  lives  out, 
and  make  yourself  a  perfect  laughing-stock  before 
the  children." 

With  this  modified  concession  from  her,  the 
quarrel  closed  in  sullen  silence  on  Lapham's  part. 
The  night  before  the  dinner  came,  and  the  question 
of  his  gloves  was  still  unsettled,  and  in  a  fair  way  to 
remain  so.  He  had  bought  a  pair,  so  as  to  be  on  the 
safe  side,  perspiring  in  company  with  the  young  lady 
who  sold  them,  and  who  helped  him  try  them  on 
at  the  shop ;  his  nails  were  still  full  of  the  powder 
which  she  had  plentifully  peppered  into  them  in 
order  to  overcome  the  resistance  of  his  blunt  fingers. 
But  he  was  uncertain  whether  he  should  wear  them. 
They  had  found  a  book  at  last  that  said  the  ladies 
removed  their  gloves  on  sitting  down  at  table,  but  it 
said  nothing  about  gentlemen's  gloves.  He  left  his 
wife  where  she  stood  half  hook-and-eyed  at  her  glass 
in  her  new  dress,  and  went  down  to  his  own  den 
beyond  the  parlour.  Before  he  shut  his  door  he 
caught  a  glimpse  of  Irene  trailing  up  and  down  be 
fore  the  long  mirror  in  her  new  dress,  followed  by 
the  seamstress  on  her  knees ;  the  woman  had  her 
mouth  full  of  pins,  and  from  time  to  time  she  made 
Irene  stop  till  she  could  put  one  of  the  pins  into  her 
train  ;  Penelope  sat  in  a  corner  criticising  and  coun 
selling.  It  made  Lapham  sick,  and  he  despised  him 
self  and  all  his  brood  for  the  trouble  they  were 
taking.  But  another  glance  gave  him  a  sight  of  the 


262  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

young  girl's  face  in  the  mirror,  beautiful  and  radiant 
with  happiness,  and  his  heart  melted  again  with 
paternal  tenderness  and  pride.  It  was  going  to  be  a 
great  pleasure  to  Irene,  and  Lapham  felt  that  she 
was  bound  to  cut  out  anything  there.  He  was  vexed 
with  Penelope  that  she  was  not  going  too ;  he  would 
have  liked  to  have  those  people  hear  her  talk.  He 
held  his  door  a  little  open,  and  listened  to  the  things 
she  was  "getting  off"  there  to  Irene.  He  showed 
that  he  felt  really  hurt  and  disappointed  about  Pene 
lope,  and  the  girl's  mother  made  her  console  him  the 
next  evening  before  they  all  drove  away  without  her. 
"  You  try  to  look  on  the  bright  side  of  it,  father. 
I  guess  you  '11  see  that  it 's  best  I  didn't  go  when  you 
get  there.  Irene  needn't  open  her  lips,  and  they  can 
all  see  how  pretty  she  is ;  but  they  wouldn't  know 
how  smart  I  was  unless  I  talked,  and  maybe  then 
they  wouldn't." 

This  thrust  at  her  father's  simple  vanity  in  her 
made  him  laugh  ;  and  then  they  drove  away,  and 
Penelope  shut  the  door,  and  went  upstairs  with  her 
lips  firmly  shutting  in  a  sob. 


XIV. 

THE  Coreys  were  one  of  the  few  old  families  who 
lingered  in  Bellingham  Place,  the  handsome,  quiet 
old  street  which  the  sympathetic  observer  must 
grieve  to  see  abandoned  to  boarding-houses.  The 
dwellings  are  stately  and  tall,  and  the  whole  place 
wears  an  air  of  aristocratic  seclusion,  which  Mrs. 
Corey's  father  might  well  have  thought  assured 
when  he  left  her  his  house  there  at  his  death.  It  is 
one  of  two  evidently  designed  by  the  same  architect 
who  built  some  houses  in  a  characteristic  taste  on 
Beacon  Street  opposite  the  Common.  It  has  a 
wooden  portico,  with  slender  fluted  columns,  which 
have  always  been  painted  white,  and  which,  with  the 
delicate  mouldings  of  the  cornice,  form  the  sole  and 
sufficient  decoration  of  the  street  front;  nothing 
could  be  simpler,  and  nothing  could  be  better. 
Within,  the  architect  has  again  indulged  his  pre 
ference  for  the  classic ;  the  roof  of  the  vestibule, 
wide  and  low,  rests  on  marble  columns,  slim  and 
fluted  like  the  wooden  columns  without,  and  an 
ample  staircase  climbs  in  a  graceful,  easy  curve  from 
the  tesselated  pavement.  Some  carved  Venetian 

263 


264  THE  RISE  OF 

scrigni  stretched  along  the  wall ;  a  rug  lay  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairs ;  but  otherwise  the  simple  ade 
quacy  of  the  architectural  intention  had  been  re 
spected,  and  the  place  looked  bare  to  the  eyes  of 
the  Laphams  ^vvhen  they  entered.  The  Coreys  had 
once  kept  a  man,  but  when  young  Corey  began  his 
retrenchments  the  man  had  yielded  to  the  neat 
maid  who  showed  the  Colonel  into  the  reception- 
room  and  asked  the  ladies  to  walk  up  two  flights. 

He  had  his  charges  from  Irene  not  to  enter 
the  drawing-room  without  her  mother,  and  he  spent 
five  minutes  in  getting  on  his  gloves,  for  he  had 
desperately  resolved  to  wear  them  at  last.  When 
he  had  them  on,  and  let  his  large  fists  hang  down 
on  either  side,  they  looked,  in  the  saffron  tint 
which  the  shop-girl  said  his  gloves  should  be  of, 
like  canvased  hams.  He  perspired  with  doubt  as 
he  climbed  the  stairs,  and  while  he  waited  on  the 
landing  for  Mrs.  Lapham  and  Irene  to  come  down 
from  above  before  going  into  the  drawing-room,  he 
stood  staring  at  his  hands,  now  open  and  now  shut, 
and  breathing  hard.  He  heard  quiet  talking  beyond 
the  portikre  within,  and  presently  Tom  Corey  came 
out. 

"Ah,  Colonel  Lapham  !  Very  glad  to  see  you." 
Lapham  shook  hands  with  him  and  gasped,  "Wait 
ing  for  Mis'  Lapham,"  to  account  for  his  presence. 
He  had  not  been  able  to  button  his  right  glove,  and 
he  now  began,  with  as  much  indifference  as  he  could 
assume,  to  pull  them  both  off,  for  he  saw  that  Corey 
wore  none.  By  the  time  he  had  stuffed  them  into 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  265 

the  pocket  of  his  coat-skirt  his  wife  and  daughter 
descended. 

Corey  welcomed  them  very  cordially  too,  but 
looked  a  little  mystified.  Mrs.  Lapham  knew  that 
he  was  silently  inquiring  for  Penelope,  and  she  did 
not  know  whether  she  ought  to  excuse  her  to  him 
first  or  not.  She  said  nothing,  and  after  a  glance 
toward  the  regions  where  Penelope  might  conjectur- 
ably  be  lingering,  he  held  aside  the  portiere  for  the 
Laphams  to  pass,  and  entered  the  room  with  them. 

Mrs.  Lapham  had  decided  against  low-necks  on 
her  own  responsibility,  and  had  entrenched  herself 
in  the  safety  of  a  black  silk,  in  which  she  looked 
very  handsome.  Irene  wore  a  dress  of  one  of  those 
shades  which  only  a  woman  or  an  artist  can  decide 
to  be  green  or  blue,  and  which  to  other  eyes  looks 
both  or  neither,  according  to  their  degrees  of  ignor 
ance.  If  it  was  more  like  a  ball  dress  than  a  dinner 
dress,  that  might  be  excused  to  the  exquisite  effect. 
She  trailed,  a  delicate  splendour,  across  the  carpet 
in  her  mother's  sombre  wake,  and  the  consciousness 
of  success  brought  a  vivid  smile  to  her  face.  Lapham, 
pallid  with  anxiety  lest  he  should  somehow  disgrace 
himself,  giving  thanks  to  God  that  he  should  have 
been  spared  the  shame  of  wearing  gloves  where  no 
one  else  did,  but  at  the  same  time  despairing  that 
Corey  should  have  seen  him  in  them,  had  an  un 
wonted  aspect  of  almost  pathetic  refinement. 

Mrs.  Corey  exchanged  a  quick  glance  of  surprise 
and  relief  with  her  husband  as  she  started  across 
the  room  to  meet  her  guests,  and  in  her  gratitude  to 


266  THE  RISE  OF 

them  for  being  so  irreproachable,  she  threw  into  her 
manner  a  warmth  that  people  did  not  always  find 
there.  "  General  Lapham  ?"  she  said,  shaking  hands 
in  quick  succession  with  Mrs.  Lapham  and  Irene, 
and  now  addressing  herself  to  him. 

"  No,  ma'am,  only  Colonel,"  said  the  honest  man, 
but  the  lady  did  not  hear  him.  She  was  introduc 
ing  her  husband  to  Lapham's  wife  and  daughter,  and 
Bromfield  Corey  was  already  shaking  his  hand  and 
saying  he  was  very  glad  to  see  him  again,  while  he 
kept  his  artistic  eye  on  Irene,  and  apparently  could 
not  take  it  off.  Lily  Corey  gave  the  Lapham  ladies 
a  greeting  which  was  physically  rather  than  socially 
cold,  and  Nanny  stood  holding  Irene's  hand  in  both 
of  hers  a  moment,  and  taking  in  her  beauty  and  her 
style  with  a  generous  admiration  which  she  could 
afford,  for  she  was  herself  faultlessly  dressed  in  the 
quiet  taste  of  her  city,  and  looking  very  pretty.  The 
interval  was  long  enough  to  let  every  man  present 
confide  his  sense  of  Irene's  beauty  to  every  other ; 
and  then,  as  the  party  was  small,  Mrs.  Corey  made 
everybody  acquainted.  When  Lapham  had  not 
quite  understood,  he  held  the  person's  hand,  and, 
leaning  urbanely  forward,  inquired,  "  What  name  ?" 
He  did  that  because  a  great  man  to  whom  he  had 
been  presented  on  the  platform  at  a  public  meeting 
had  done  so  to  him,  and  he  knew  it  must  be  right. 

A  little  lull  ensued  upon  the  introductions,  and 
Mrs.  Corey  said  quietly  to  Mrs.  Lapham,  "  Can  I 
send  any  one  to  be  of  use  to  Miss  Lapham?"  as  if 
Penelope  must  be  in  the  dressing-room. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  267 

Mrs.  Laphatn  turned  fire-red,  and  the  graceful 
forms  in  which  she  had  been  intending  to  excuse  her 
daughter's  absence  went  out  of  her  head.  "  She  isn't 
upstairs,"  she  said,  at  her  bluntest,  as  country  people 
are  when  embarrassed.  "  She  didn't  feel  just  like 
coming  to-night.  I  don't  know  as  she's  feeling  very 
well." 

Mrs.  Corey  emitted  a  very  small  "  0  ! " — very 
small,  very  cold, — which  began  to  grow  larger  and 
hotter  and  to  burn  into  Mrs.  Lapham's  soul  before 
Mrs.  Corey  could  add,  "I'm  very  sorry.  It 's  nothing 
serious,  I  hope  1" 

Eobert  Chase,  the  painter,  had  not  come,  and  Mrs. 
James  Bellingham  was  not  there,  so  that  the  table 
really  balanced  better  without  Penelope  ;  but  Mrs. 
Lapham  could  not  know  this,  and  did  not  deserve  to 
know  it.  Mrs.  Corey  glanced  round  the-  room,  as  if 
to  take  account  of  her  guests,  and  said  to  her 
husband,  "I  think. we  are  all  here,  then,"  and  he 
came  forward  and  gave  his  arm  to  Mrs.  Lapham.  She 
perceived  then  that  in  their  determination  not  to  be 
the  first  to  come  they  had  been  the  last,  and  must 
have  kept  the  others  waiting  for  them. 

Lapham  had  never  seen  people  go  down  to  dinner 
arm-in-arm  before,  but  he  knew  that  his  wife  was  dis 
tinguished  in  being  taken  out  by  the  host,  and  he  waited 
in  jealous  impatience  to  see  if  Tom  Corey  would  offer 
his  arm  to  Irene.  He  gave  it  to  that  big  girl  they 
called  Miss  Kingsbury,  and  the  handsome  old  fellow 
whom  Mrs.  Corey  had  introduced  as  her  cousin  took 
Irene  out.  Lapham  was  startled  from  the  misgiving 


268  THE  RISE  OF 

in  which  this  left  him  by  Mrs.  Corey's  passing  her 
hand  through  his  arm,  and  he  made  a  sudden  move 
ment  forward,  but  felt  himself  gently  restrained.  They 
went  out  the  last  of  all ;  he  did  not  know  why,  but 
he  submitted,  and  when  they  sat  down  he  saw  that 
Irene,  although  she  had  come  in  with  that  Mr. 
Bellingham,  was  seated  beside  young  Corey,  after  all. 
He  fetched  a  long  sigh  of  relief  when  he  sank  into 
his  chair  and  felt  himself  safe  from  error  if  he  kept 
a  sharp  lookout  and  did  only  what  the  others  did. 
Bellingham  had  certain  habits  which  he  permitted 
himself,  and  one  of  these  was  tucking  the  corner  of 
his  napkin  into  his  collar ;  he  confessed  himself  an 
uncertain  shot  with  a  spoon,  and  defended  his 
practice  on  the  ground  of  neatness  and  common- 
sense.  Lapham  put  his  napkin  into  his  cbllar  too, 
and  then,  seeing  that  no  one  but  Bellingham  did  it, 
became  alarmed  and  took  it  out  again  slyly.  He  never 
had  wine  on  his  table  at  home,  and  on  principle  he 
was  a  prohibitionist ;  but  now  he  did  not  know  just 
what  to  do  about  the  glasses  at  the  right  of  his  plate. 
He  had  a  notion  to  turn  £hem  all  down,  as  he  had 
read  of  a  well-known  politician's  doing  at  a  public 
dinner,  to  show  that  he  did  not  take  wine  ;  but,  after 
twiddling  with  one  of  them  a  moment,  he  let  them 
be,  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  would  be  a  little  too 
conspicuous,  and  he  felt  that  every  one  was  looking. 
He  let  the  servant  fill  them  all,  and  he  drank  out  of 
each,  not  to  appear  odd.  Later,  he  observed  that  the 
young  ladies  were  not  taking  wine,  and  he  was  glad 
to  see  that  Irene  had  refused  it,  and  that  Mrs 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  269 

Lapham  was  letting  it  stand  untasted.  He  did  not 
know  but  he  ought  to  decline  some  of  the  dishes,  or 
at  least  leave  most  of  some  on  his  plate,  but  he  was 
not  able  to  decide ;  he  took  everything  and  ate 
everything. 

He  noticed  that  Mrs.  Corey  seemed  to  take  no 
more  trouble  about  the  dinner  than  anybody,  and 
Mr.  Corey  rather  less ;  he  was  talking  busily  to 
Mrs.  Lapham,  and  Lapham  caught  a  word  here  and 
there  that  convinced  him  she  was  holding  her  own. 
He  was  getting  on  famously  himself  with  Mrs. 
Corey,  who  had  begun  with  him  about  his  new 
house ;  he  was  telling  her  all  about  it,  and  giving 
her  his  ideas.  Their  conversation  naturally  included 
his  architect  across  the  table ;  Lapham  had  been 
delighted  and  secretly  surprised  to  find  the  fellow 
there ;  and  at  something  Seymour  said  the  talk 
spread  suddenly,  and  the  pretty  house  he  was  build 
ing  for  Colonel  Lapham  became  the  general  theme. 
Young  Corey  testified  to  its  loveliness,  and  the 
architect  said  laughingly  that  if  he  had  been  able  to 
make  a  nice  thing  of  it,  he  owed  it  to  the  practical 
sympathy  of  his  client. 

"Practical  sympathy  is  good,"  said  Bromfield 
Corey ;  and,  slanting  his  head  confidentially  to 
Mrs.  Lapham,  he  added,  "  Does  he  bleed  your 
husband,  Mrs.  Lapham  ?  He 's  a  terrible  fellow 
for  appropriations  ! " 

Mrs.  Lapham  laughed,  reddening  consciously,  and 
said  she  guessed  the  Colonel  knew  how  to  take  care 
of  himself.  This  struck  Lapham,  then  draining  his 


270  THE  RISE  OF 

glass  of  sauterne,  as  wonderfully  discreet  in  his 
wife. 

Bromfield  Corey  leaned  back  in  his  chair  a 
moment.  "  Well,  after  all,  you  can't  say,  with  all 
your  modern  fuss  about  it,  that  you  do  much  better 
now  than  the  old  fellows  who  built  such  houses  as 
this." 

"  Ah,"  said  the  architect,  "  nobody  can  do  better 
than  well.  Your  house  is  in  perfect  taste  ;  you 
know  I  've  always  admired  it ;  and  I  don't  think  it 's 
at  all  the  worse  for  being  old-fashioned.  What 
we've  done  is  largely  to  go  back  of  the  hideous 
style  that  raged  after  they  forgot  how  to  make  this 
sort  of  house.  But  I  think  we  may  claim  a  better 
feeling  for  structure.  We  use  better  material,  and 
more  wisely ;  and  by  and  by  we  shall  work  out 
something  more  characteristic  and  original." 

"  With  your  chocolates  and  olives,  and  your 
clutter  of  bric-a-brac  1 " 

"  All  that 's  bad,  of  course,  but  I  don't  mean  that. 
I  don't  wish  to  make  you  envious  of  Colonel 
Lapham,  and  modesty  prevents  my  saying  that 
his  house  is  prettier, — though  I  may  have  my  con 
victions, — but  it 's  better  built.  All  the  new  houses 
are  better  built.  Now,  your  house 

"  Mrs.  Corey's  house,"  interrupted  the  host,  with 
a  burlesque  haste  in  disclaiming  responsibility  for  it 
that  made  them  all  laugh.  "  My  ancestral  halls  are 
in  Salem,  and  I'm.  told  you  couldn't  drive  a  nail 
into  their  timbers  ;  in  fact,  I  don't  know  that  you 
would  want  to  do  it." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  271 

"  I  should  consider  it  a  species  of  sacrilege," 
answered  Seymour,  "  and  I  shall  be  far  from  pressing 
the  point  I  was  going  to  make  against  a  house  of 
Mrs.  Corey's." 

This  won  Seymour  the  easy  laugh,  and  Lapham 
silently  wondered  that  the  fellow  never  got  off  any 
of  those  things  to  him. 

"Well,"  said  Corey,  "you  architects  and  the 
musicians  are  the  true  and  only  artistic  creators. 
All  the  rest  of  us,  sculptors,  painters,  novelists,  and 
tailors,  deal  with  forms  that  we  have  before  us ;  we 
try  to  imitate,  we  try  to  represent.  But  you  two 
sorts  of  artists  create  form.  If  you  represent,  you 
fail.  Somehow  or  other  you  do  evolve  the  camel 
out  of  your  inner  consciousness." 

"  I  will  not  deny  the  soft  impeachment,"  said  the 
architect,  with  a  modest  air. 

"I  dare  say.  And  you'll  own  that  it's  very 
handsome  of  me  to  say  this,  after  your  unjustifiable 
attack  on  Mrs.  Corey's  property," 

Bromfield  Corey  addressed  himself  again  to  Mrs. 
Lapham,  and  the  talk  subdivided  itself  as  before. 
It  lapsed  so  entirely  away  from  the  subject  just  in 
hand,  that  Lapham  was  left  with  rather  a  good  idea, 
as  he  thought  it,  to  perish  in  his  mind,  for  want  of  a 
chance  to  express  it.  The  only  thing  like  a  re 
currence  to  what  they  had  been  saying  was  Bromfield 
Corey's  warning  Mrs.  Lapham,  in  some  connection 
that  Lapham  lost,  against  Miss  Kingsbury.  "  She  's 
worse,"  he  was  saying,  "when  it  comes  to  appro 
priations  than  Seymour  himself.  Depend  upon  it, 


272  THE  RISE  OF 

Mrs.  Lapham,  she  will  give  you  no  peace  of  your 
mind,  now  she 's  met  you,  from  this  out.  Her 
tender  mercies  are  cruel ;  and  I  leave  you  to  supply 
the  context  from  your  own  scriptural  knowledge. 
Beware  of  her,  and  all  her  works.  She  calls  them 
works  of  charity ;  but  heaven  knows  whether  they 
are.  It  don't  stand  to  reason  that  she  gives  the  poor 
all  the  money  she  gets  out  of  people.  I  have  my  own 
belief  " — he  gave  it  in  a  whisper  for  the  whole  table 
to  hear — "that  she  spends  it  for  champagne  and 
cigars." 

Lapham  did  not  know  about  that  kind  of  talking ; 
but  Miss  Kingsbury  seemed  to  enjoy  the  fun  as 
much  as  anybody,  and  he  laughed  with  the  rest. 

"You  shall  be  asked  to  the  very  next  debauch 
of  the  committee,  Mr.  Corey ;  then  you  won't  dare 
expose  us,"  said  Miss  Kingsbury. 

"  I  wonder  you  haven't  been  down  upon  Corey  to 
go  to  the  Chardon  Street  home  and  talk  with  your 
indigent  Italians  in  their  native  tongue,"  said  Charles 
Bellingham.  "  I  saw  in  the  Transcript  the  other 
night  that  you  wanted  some  one  for  the  work." 

"  We  did  think  of  Mr.  Corey,"  replied  Miss 
Kingsbury ;  "  but  we  reflected  that  he  probably 
wouldn't  talk  with  them  at  all ;  he  would  make 
them  keep  still  to  be  sketched,  and  forget  all  about 
their  wants." 

Upon  the  theory  that  this  was  a  fair  return  for 
Corey's  pleasantry,  the  others  laughed  again. 

"  There  is  one  charity,"  said  Corey,  pretending 
superiority  to  Miss  Kingsbury's  point,  "that  is  so 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  273 

difficult,  I  wonder  it  hasn't  occurred  to  a  lady  of 
your  courageous  invention." 

"  Yes  ? "  said  Miss  Kingsbury.     "  What  is  that  1 " 

"  The  occupation,  by  deserving  poor  of  neat  habits, 
of  all  the  beautiful,  airy,  wholesome  houses  that 
stand  empty  the  whole  summer  long,  while  their 
owners  are  away  in  their  lowly  cots  beside  the 
sea." 

"Yes,  that  is  terrible,"  replied  Miss  Kingsbury, 
with  quick  earnestness,  while  her  eyes  grew  moist. 
"I  have  often  thought  of  our  great,  cool  houses 
standing  useless  here,  and  the  thousands  of  poor 
creatures  stifling  in  their  holes  and  dens,  and  the 
little  children  dying  for  wholesome  shelter.  How 
cruelly  selfish  we  are  ! " 

"  That  is  a  very  comfortable  sentiment,  Miss 
Kingsbury,"  said  Corey,  "  and  must  make  you  feel 
almost  as  if  you  had  thrown  open  No.  31  to  the 
whole  North  End.  But  I  am  serious  about  this 
matter.  I  spend  my  summers  in  town,  and  I  occupy 
my  own  house,  so  that  I  can  speak  impartially  and 
intelligently;  and  I  tell  you  that  in  some  of  my 
walks  on  the  Hill  and  down  on  the  Back  Bay, 
nothing  but  the  surveillance  of  the  local  policeman 
prevents  my  offering  personal  violence  to  those  long 
rows  of  close-shuttered,  handsome,  brutally  insensible 
houses.  If  I  were  a  poor  man,  with  a  sick  child 
pining  in  some  garret  or  cellar  at  the  North  End,  I 
should  break  into  one  of  them,  and  camp  out  on  the 
grand  piano." 

"Surely,  Bromfield,"  said  his  wife,  "you  don't 
s 


274  THE  RISE  OF 

consider  what  havoc  such  people  would  make  with 
the  furniture  of  a  nice  house  !" 

"  That  is  true,"  answered  Corey,  with  meek  con 
viction.  "  I  never  thought  of  that." 

"  And  if  you  were  a  poor  man  with  a  sick  child,  I 
doubt  if  you  'd  have  so  much  heart  for  burglary  as 
you  have  now,"  said  James  Bellingham. 

"It 's  wonderful  how  patient  they  are,"  said  the 
minister.  "  The  spectacle  of  the  hopeless  comfort  the 
hard-working  poor  man  sees  must  be  hard  to  bear." 

Lapham  wanted  to  speak  up  and  say  that  he  had 
been  there  himself,  and  knew  how  such  a  man  felt. 
He  wanted  to  tell  them  that  generally  a  poor  man 
was  satisfied  if  he  could  make  both  ends  meet ;  that 
he  didn't  envy  any  one  his  good  luck,  if  he  had 
earned  it,  so  long  as  he  wasn't  running  under  him 
self.  But  before  he  could  get  the  courage  to  address 
the  whole  table,  Sewell  added,  "  I  suppose  he  don't 
always  think  of  it." 

"  But  some  day  he  mil  think  about  it,"  said  Corey. 
"  In  fact,  we  rather  invite  him  to  think  about  it,  in 
this  country." 

"  My  brother-in-law,"  said  Charles  Bellingham, 
with  the  pride  a  man  feels  in  a  mention  ably  remark 
able  brother-in-law,  "  has  no  end  of  fellows  at  work 
under  him  out  there  at  Omaha,  and  he  says  it's 
the  fellows  from  countries  where  they  've  been  kept 
from  thinking  about  it  that  are  discontented.  The 
Americans  never  make  any  trouble.  They  seem  to 
understand  that  so  long  as  we  give  unlimited  oppor 
tunity,  nobody  has  a  right  to  complain." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  275 

"  What  do  you  hear  from  Leslie  ] "  asked  Mrs. 
Corey,  turning  from  these  profitless  abstractions  to 
Mrs.  Bellingham. 

"  You  know,"  said  that  lady  in  a  hwer  tone, 
"  that  there  is  another  baby  ? " 

"No!     I  hadn't  heard  of  it !" 

"  Yes ;  a  boy.  They  have  named  him  after  his 
uncle." 

"  Yes,"  said  Charles  Bellingham,  joining  in.  "  He 
is  said  to  be  a  noble  boy,  and  to  resemble  me." 

"  All  boys  of  that  tender  age  are  noble,"  said 
Corey,  "  and  look  like  anybody  you  wish  them  to 
resemble.  Is  Leslie  still  home-sick  for  the  bean-pots 
of  her  native  Boston  ? " 

"  She  is  getting  over  it,  I  fancy,"  replied  Mrs. 
Bellingham.  "  She  's  very  much  taken  up  with  Mr. 
Blake's  enterprises,  and  leads  a  very  exciting  life. 
She  says  she 's  like  people  who  have  been  home 
from  Europe  three  years ;  she 's  past  the  most  poi 
gnant  stage  of  regret,  and  hasn't  reached  the  second, 
when  they  feel  that  they  must  go  again." 

Lapham  leaned  a  little  toward  Mrs.  Corey,  and 
said  of  a  picture  which  he  saw  on  the  wall  opposite, 
"  Picture  of  your  daughter,  I  presume  ] " 

"  No;  my  daughter's  grandmother.  It 's  a  Stewart 
Newton ;  he  painted  a  great  many  Salem  beauties. 
She  was  a  Miss  Polly  Burroughs.  My  daughter  is 
like  her,  don't  you  think  1 "  They  both  looked  at 
Nanny  Corey  and  then  at  the  portrait.  "  Those 
pretty  old-fashioned  dresses  are  coming  in  again. 
I  'm  not  surprised  you  took  it  for  her.  The  others  " 


276  THE  RISE  OF 

— she  referred  to  the  other  portraits  more  or  less 
darkling  on  the  walls — "  are  my  people ;  mostly 
Copleys." 

These  names,  unknown  to  Lapham,  went  to  his 
head  like  the  wine  he  was  drinking ;  they  seemed  to 
carry  light  for  the  moment,  but  a  film  of  deeper 
darkness  followed.  He  heard  Charles  Bellingham 
telling  funny  stories  to  Irene  and  trying  to  amuse 
the  girl ;  she  was  laughing,  and  seemed  very  happy. 
From  time  to  time  Bellingham  took  part  in  the 
general  talk  between  the  host  and  James  Bellingham 
and  Miss  Kingsbury  and  that  minister,  Mr.  Sewell. 
They  talked  of  people  mostly;  it  astonished  Lapham 
to  hear  with  what  freedom  they  talked.  They  dis 
cussed  these  persons  unsparingly;  James  Belling 
ham  spoke  of  a  man  known  to  Lapham  for  his  busi 
ness  success  and  great  wealth  as  not  a  gentleman ; 
his  cousin  Charles  said  he  was  surprised  that  the 
fellow  had  kept  from  being  governor  so  long. 

When  the  latter  turned  from  Irene  to  make  one 
of  these  excursions  into  the  general  talk,  young 
Corey  talked  to  her ;  and  Lapham  caught  some 
words  from  which  it  seemed  that  they  were  speak 
ing  of  Penelope.  It  vexed  him  to  think  she  had  not 
come;  she  could  have  talked  as  well  as  any  of  them; 
she  was  just  as  bright ;  and  Lapham  was  aware  that 
Irene  was  not  as  bright,  though  when  he  looked  at 
her  face,  triumphant  in  its  young  beauty  and  fond 
ness,  he  said  to  himself  that  it  did  not  make  any 
difference.  He  felt  that  he  was  not  holding  up  his 
end  of  the  line,  however.  When  some  one  spoke  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  277 

him  he  could  only  summon  a  few  words  of  reply, 
that  seemed  to  lead  to  nothing ;  things  often  came 
into  his  mind  appropriate  to  what  they  were  saying, 
but  before  he  could  get  them  out  they  were  off  on 
something  else  ;  they  jumped  about  so,  he  could  not 
keep  up  ;  but  he  felt,  all  the  same,  that  he  was  not 
doing  himself  justice. 

At  one  time  the  talk  ran  off  upon  a  subject  that 
Lapham  had  never  heard  talked  of  before ;  but  again 
he  was  vexed  that  Penelope  was  not  there,  to  have 
her  say  ;  he  believed  that  her  say  would  have  been 
worth  hearing. 

Miss  Kingsbury  leaned  forward  and  asked  Charles 
Bellingham  if  he  had  read  Tears,  Idle  Tears,  the 
novel  that  was  making  such  a  sensation ;  and  when 
he  said  no,  she  said  she  wondered  at  him.  "It's  per 
fectly  heart-breaking,  as  you'll  imagine  from  the 
name  ;  but  there 's  such  a  dear  old-fashioned  hero 
and  heroine  in  it,  who  keep  dying  for  each  other  all 
the  way  through,  and  making  the  most  wildly  satisfac 
tory  and  unnecessary  sacrifices  for  each  other.  You 
feel  as  if  you  'd  done  them  yourself." 

"  Ah,  that 's  the  secret  of  its  success,"  said  Brom- 
field  Corey.  "  It  flatters  the  reader  by  painting 
the  characters  colossal,  but  with  his  limp  and  stoop, 
so  that  he  feels  himself  of  their  supernatural  propor 
tions.  You  've  read  it,  Nanny  ] " 

"  Yes,"  said  his  daughter.  "  It  ought  to  have  been 
called  Slop,  Silly  Slop." 

"  Oh,  not  quite  slop,  Nanny,"  pleaded  Miss  Kings- 
bury. 


278  THE  RISE  OF 

"It's astonishing,"  said  Charles Bellingham,  "how 
we  do  like  the  books  that  go  for  our  heart-strings. 
And  I  really  suppose  that  you  can't  put  a  more 
popular  thing  than  self-sacrifice  into  a  novel.  We 
do  like  to  see  people  suffering  sublimely." 

"  There  was  talk  some  years  ago,"  said  James 
Bellingham,  "  about  novels  going  out." 

"They're  just  coming  in!"  cried  Miss  Kings- 
bury. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Scwell,  the  minister.  "  And  I 
don't  think  there  ever  was  a  time  when  they  formed 
the  whole  intellectual  experience  of  more  people. 
They  do  greater  mischief  than  ever." 

"  Don't  be  envious,  parson,"  said  the  host. 

"  No,"  answered  Sewell.  "  I  should  be  glad  of 
their  help.  But  those  novels  with  old-fashioned 
heroes  and  heroines  in  them — excuse  me,  Miss 
Kingsbury — are  ruinous  !" 

"  Don't  you  feel  like  a  moral  wreck,  Miss  Kings- 
bury  1 "  asked  the  host. 

But  Sewell  went  on  :  "  The  novelists  might  be  the 
greatest  possible  help  to  us  if  they  painted  life  as  it 
is,  and  human  feelings  in  their  true  proportion  and 
relation,  but  for  the  most  part  they  have  been  and 
are  altogether  noxious." 

This  seemed  sense  to  Lapham ;  but  Bromfield 
Corey  asked  :  "  But  what  if  life  as  it  is  isn't  amus 
ing  1  Aren't  we  to  be  amused  ? " 

"  Not  to  our  hurt,"  sturdily  answered  the  minis 
ter.  "  And  the  self-sacrifice  painted  in  most  novels 
like  this " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  279 

"Slop,  Silly  Slop?"  suggested  the  proud  father  of 
the  inventor  of  the  phrase. 

"  Yes — is  nothing  but  psychical  suicide,  and  is  as 
wholly  immoral  as  the  spectacle  of  a  man  falling 
upon  his  sword." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  but  you  're  right,  parson,"  said 
the  host ;  and  the  minister,  who  had  apparently  got 
upon  a  battle-horse  of  his,  careered  onward  in  spite 
of  some  tacit  attempts  of  his  wife  to  seize  the  bridle. 

"  Right  ?  To  be  sure  I  am  right.  The  whole 
business  of  love,  and  love-making  and  marrying,  is 
painted  by  the  novelists  in  a  monstrous  dispropor 
tion  to  the  other  relations  of  life.  Love  is  very 
sweet,  very  pretty " 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  Mr.  Sewell,"  said  Nanny  Corey, 
in  a  way  that  set  them  all  laughing. 

"But  it's  the  affair,  commonly,  of  very  young 
people,  who  have  not  yet  character  and  experience 
enough  to  make  them  interesting.  In  novels  it's 
treated,  not  only  as  if  it  were  the  chief  interest  of 
life,  but  the  sole  interest  of  the  lives  of  two  ridicu 
lous  young  persons ;  and  it  is  taught  that  love  is  per 
petual,  that  the  glow  of  a  true  passion  lasts  for  ever ; 
and  that  it  is  sacrilege  to  think  or  act  otherwise." 

"Well,  but  isn't  that  true,  Mr.  Sewell?"  pleaded 
Miss  Kingsbury. 

"  I  have  known  some  most  estimable  people  who 
had  married  a  second  time,"  said  the  minister,  and 
then  he  had  the  applause  with  him.  Lapham  wanted 
to  make  some  open  recognition  of  his  good  sense,  but 
could  not. 


280  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  suppose  the  passion  itself  has  been  a  good  deal 
changed,"  said  Bromfield  Corey,  "  since  the  poets  be 
gan  to  idealise  it  in  the  days  of  chivalry." 

"  Yes ;  and  it  ought  to  be  changed  again,"  said 
Mr.  SewelL 

"What!     Back?" 

"  I  don't  say  that.  But  it  ought  to  be  recognised 
as  something  natural  and  mortal,  and  divine  honours, 
which  belong  to  righteousness  alone,  ought  not  to  be 
paid  it." 

"Oh,  you  ask  too  much, parson,"  laughed  his  host, 
and  the  talk  wandered  away  to  something  else. 

It  was  not  an  elaborate  dinner ;  but  Lapham  was 
used  to  having  everything  on  the  table  at  once,  and 
this  succession  of  dishes  bewildered  him;  he  was 
afraid  perhaps  he  was  eating  too  much.  He  now  no 
longer  made  any  pretence  of  not  drinking  his  wine, 
for  he  was  thirsty,  and  there  was  no  more  water,  and 
he  hated  to  ask  for  any.  The  ice-cream  came,  and 
then  the  fruit.  Suddenly  Mrs.  Corey  rose,  and  said 
across  the  table  to  her  husband,  "  I  suppose  you  will 
want  your  coffee  here."  And  he  replied,  "  Yes ; 
we  '11  join  you  at  tea." 

The  ladies  all  rose,  and  the  gentlemen  got  up  with 
them.  Lapham  started  to  follow  Mrs.  Corey,  but 
the  other  men  merely  stood  in  their  places,  except 
young  Corey,  who  ran  and  opened  the  door  for  his 
mother.  Lapham  thought  with  shame  that  it  was  he 
who  ought  to  have  done  that ;  but  no  one  seemed  to 
notice,  and  he  sat  down  again  gladly,  after  kicking 
out  one  of  his  legs  which  had  gone  to  sleep. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  281 

They  brought  in  cigars  with  coffee,  and  Bromfield 
Corey  advised  Lapham  to  take  one  that  he  chose 
for  him.  Lapham  confessed  that  he  liked  a  good 
cigar  about  as  well  as  anybody,  and  Corey  said  : 
"  These  are  new.  I  had  an  Englishman  here  the 
other  day  who  was  smoking  old  cigars  in  the  super 
stition  that  tobacco  improved  with  age,  like  wine." 

"Ah,"  said  Lapham,  "anybody  who  had  ever 
lived  off  a  tobacco  country  could  tell  him  better 
than  that."  With  the  fuming  cigar  between  his 
lips  he  felt  more  at  home  than  he  had  before.  He 
turned  sidewise  in  his  chair  and,  resting  one  arm  on 
the  back,  intertwined  the  fingers  of  both  hands,  and 
smoked  at  large  ease. 

James  Bellingham  came  and  sat  down  by  him. 
"Colonel  Lapham,  weren't  you  with  the  96th  Ver 
mont  when  they  charged  across  the  river  in  front  of 
Pickensburg,  and  the  rebel  battery  opened  fire  on 
them  in  the  water  ?  " 

Lapham  slowly  shut  his  eyes  and  slowly  dropped 
his  head  for  assent,  letting  out  a  white  volume  of 
smoke  from  the  corner  of  his  mouth. 

"I  thought  so,"  said  Bellingham.  "I  was  with 
the  85th  Massachusetts,  and  I  sha'n't  forget  that 
slaughter.  We  were  all  new  to  it  still.  Perhaps 
that's  why  it  made  such  an  impression." 

"I  don't  know,"  suggested  Charles  Bellingham. 
"Was  there  anything  much  more  impressive  after 
ward  1  I  read  of  it  out  in  Missouri,  where  I  was 
stationed  at  the  time,  and  I  recollect  the  talk  of 
some  old  army  men  about  it.  They  said  that  death- 


282  THE  RISE  OF 

rate  couldn't  be  beaten.  I  don't  know  that  it  ever 
was." 

"About  one  in  five  of  us  got  out  safe,"  said 
Lapham,  breaking  his  cigar-ash  off  on  the  edge  of 
a  plate.  James  Bellingham  reached  him  a  bottle  of 
Apollinaris.  He  drank  a  glass,  and  then  went  on 
smoking. 

They  all  waited,  as  if  expecting  him  to  speak,  and 
then  Corey  said :  "  How  incredible  those  things 
seem  already  !  You  gentlemen  know  that  they  hap 
pened  ;  but  are  you  still  able  to  believe  it  ? " 

"Ah,  nobody  feels  that  anything  happened,"  said 
Charles  Bellingham.  "  The  past  of  one's  experi 
ence  doesn't  differ  a  great  deal  from  the  past  of 
one's  knowledge.  It  isn't  much  more  probable; 
it 's  really  a  great  deal  less  vivid  than  some  scenes 
in  a  novel  that  one  read  when  a  boy." 

"I'm  not  sure  of  that,"  said  James  Bellingham. 

"  Well,  James,  neither  am  I,"  consented  his  cousin, 
helping  himself  from  Lapham's  Apollinaris  bottle. 
"  There  would  be  very  little  talking  at  dinner  if  one 
only  said  the  things  that  one  was  sure  of." 

The  others  laughed,  and  Bromfield  Corey  remarked 
thoughtfully,  "What  astonishes  the  craven  civilian 
in  all  these  things  is  the  abundance — the  superabun 
dance — of  heroism.  The  cowards  were  the  excep 
tion  ;  the  men  that  were  ready  to  die,  the  rule." 

"The  woods  were  full  of  them,"  said  Lapham, 
without  taking  his  cigar  from  his  mouth. 

"  That 's  a  nice  little  touch  in  School,"  inter 
posed  Charles  Bellingham,  "  where  the  girl  says  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  283 

the  fellow  who  was  at  Inkerman,  'I  should  think 
you  would  be  so  proud  of  it,'  and  he  reflects  a  while, 
and  says,  '  Well,  the  fact  is,  you  know,  there  were 
so  many  of  us.'" 

"  Yes,  I  remember  that,"  said  James  Bellingham, 
smiling  for  pleasure  in  it.  "But  I  don't  see  why 
you  claim  the  credit  of  being  a  craven  civilian, 
Bromfield,"  he  added,  with  a  friendly  glance  at  his 
brother-in-law,  and  with  the  willingness  Boston  men 
often  show  to  turn  one  another's  good  points  to  the 
light  in  company;  bred  so  intimately  together  at 
school  and  college  and  in  society,  they  all  know 
these  points.  "  A  man  who  was  out  with  Garibaldi 
in  '48,"  continued  James  Bellingham. 

"  Oh,  a  little  amateur  red-shirting,"  Corey  inter 
rupted  in  deprecation.  "But  even  if  you  choose 
to  dispute  my  claim,  what  has  become  of  all  the 
heroism  1  Tom,  how  many  club  men  do  you  know 
who  would  think  it  sweet  and  fitting  to  die  for 
their  country  ? " 

"  I  can't  think  of  a  great  many  at  the  moment, 
sir,"  replied  the  son,  with  the  modesty  of  his  gene 
ration. 

"And  I  couldn't  in  '61,"  said  his  uncle.  "Never 
theless  they  were  there." 

"  Then  your  theory  is  that  it 's  the  occasion  that 
is  wanting,"  said  Bromfield  Corey.  "  But  why 
shouldn't  civil  service  reform,  and  the  resumption  of 
specie  payment,  and  a  tariff  for  revenue  only,  inspire 
heroes  ]  They  are  all  good  causes." 

"  It 's   the  occasion   that 's  wanting,"  said  James 


284  THE  RISE  OP 

Bellingham,  ignoring  the  persiflage.  "  And  I  'm  very 
glad  of  it." 

"  So  am  I,"  said  Lapham,  with  a  depth  of  feeling 
that  expressed  itself  in  spite  of  the  haze  in  which  his 
brain  seemed  to  float.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  the 
talk  that  he  could  not  follow ;  it  was  too  quick  for 
him  ;  but  here  was  something  he  was  clear  of.  "  I 
don't  want  to  see  any  more  men  killed  in  my  time." 
Something  serious,  something  sombre  must  lurk 
behind  these  words,  and  they  waited  for  Lapham  to 
say  more  ;  but  the  haze  closed  round  him  again,  and 
he  remained  silent,  drinking  Apollinaris. 

"We  non-combatants  were  notoriously  reluctant 
to  give  up  fighting,"  said  Mr.  Sewell,  the  minister ; 
"  but  I  incline  to  think  Colonel  Lapham  and  Mr. 
Bellingham  may  be  right.  I  dare  say  we  shall  have 
the  heroism  again  if  we  have  the  occasion.  Till  it 
comes,  we  must  content  ourselves  with  the  every 
day  generosities  and  sacrifices.  They  make  up  in 
quantity  what  they  lack  in  quality,  perhaps." 

"  They  're  not  so  picturesque,"  said  Bromfield 
Corey.  "  You  can  paint  a  man  dying  for  his 
country,  but  you  can't  express  on  canvas  a  man 
fulfilling  the  duties  of  a  good  citizen." 

"  Perhaps  the  novelists  will  get  at  him  by  and  by," 
suggested  Charles  Bellingham.  "  If  I  were  one  of 
these  fellows,  I  shouldn't  propose  to  myself  anything 
short  of  that." 

"  What  1  the  commonplace  ? "  asked  his  cousin. 

"  Commonplace  ?  The  commonplace  is  just  that 
light,  impalpable,  aerial  essence  which  they  Ve  never 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  285 

got  into  their  confounded  books  yet.  The  novelist 
who  could  interpret  the  common  feelings  of  common 
place  people  would  have  the  answer  to  '  the  riddle 
of  the  painful  earth  '  on  his  tongue." 

"  Oh,  not  so  bad  as  that,  I  hope,"  said  the  host ; 
and  Lapham  looked  from  one  to  the  other,  trying  to 
make  out  what  they  were  at.  He  had  never  been  so 
up  a  tree  before. 

"  I  suppose  it  isn't  well  for  us  to  see  human  nature 
at  white  heat  habitually,"  continued  Bromfield  Corey, 
after  a  while.  "  It  would  make  us  vain  of  our 
species.  Many  a  poor  fellow  in  that  war  and  in 
many  another  has  gone  into  battle  simply  and  purely 
for  his  country's  sake,  not  knowing  whether,  if  he 
laid  down  his  life,  he  should  ever  find  it  again,  or 
whether,  if  he  took  it  up  hereafter,  he  should  take  it 
up  in  heaven  or  hell.  Come,  parson  !"  he  said,  turn 
ing  to  the  minister,  "  what  has  ever  been  conceived 
of  omnipotence,  of  omniscience,  so  sublime,  so  divine 
as  that?" 

"  Nothing,"  answered  the  minister  quietly.  "  God 
has  never  been  imagined  at  all.  But  if  you  suppose 
such  a  man  as  that  was  Authorised,  I  think  it  will 
help  you  to  imagine  what  God  must  be." 

"  There 's  sense  in  that,"  said  Lapham.  He  took 
his  cigar  out  of  his  mouth,  and  pulled  his  chair  a 
little  toward  the  table,  on  which  he  placed  his 
ponderous  fore-arms.  "  I  want  to  tell  you  about  a 
fellow  I  had  in  my  own  company  when  we  first  went 
out.  We  were  all  privates  to  begin  with ;  after  a 
while  they  elected  me  captain — I  'd  had  the  tavern 


28ff  THE  RISE  OF 

stand,  and  most  of  'em  knew  me.  But  Jim  Millon 
never  got  to  be  anything  more  than  corporal  ; 
corporal  when  he  was  killed."  The  others  arrested 
themselves  in  various  attitudes  of  attention,  and 
remained  listening  to  Lapham  with  an  interest  that 
profoundly  flattered  him.  Now,  at  last,  he  felt  that 
he  was  holding  up  his  end  of  the  rope.  "  I  can't  say 
he  went  into  the  thing  from  the  highest  motives, 
altogether ;  our  motives,  are  always  pretty  badly 
mixed,  and  when  there  's  such  a  hurrah-boys  as  there 
was  then,  you  can't  tell  which  is  which.  I  suppose 
Jim  Millon's  wife  was  enough  to  account  for  his 
going,  herself.  She  was  a  pretty  bad  assortment," 
said  Lapham,  lowering  his  voice  and  glancing  round 
at  the  door  to  make  sure  that  it  was  shut,  "  and  she 
used  to  lead  Jim  one  kind  of  life.  Well,  sir,"  con 
tinued  Lapham,  synthetising  his  auditors  in  that  form 
of  address,  "  that  fellow  used  to  save  every  cent  of 
his  pay  and  send  it  to  that  woman.  Used  to  get  me 
to  do  it  for  him.  I  tried  to  stop  him.  '  Why,  Jim,' 
said  I,  '  you  know  what  she  11  do  with  it.'  '  That 's 
so,  Cap,'  says  he,  '  but  I  don't  know  what  she  '11  do 
without  it.'  And  it  did  keep  her  straight — straight 
as  a  string — as  long  as  Jim  lasted.  Seemed  as  it 
there  was  something  mysterious  about  it.  They  had 
a  little  girl, — about  as  old  as  my  oldest  girl, — and 
Jim  used  to  talk  to  me  about  her.  Guess  he  done 
it  as  much  for  her  as  for  the  mother ;  and  he  said  to 
me  before  the  last  action  we  went  into,  '  I  should 
like  to  turn  tail  and  run,  Cap.  I  ain't  comin'  out  o' 
this  one.  But  I  don't  suppose  it  would  do.'  '  Well, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  287 

not  for  you,  Jim,'  said  I.  '  I  want  to  live,'  he  says  ; 
and  he  bust  out  crying  right  there  in  my  tent.  '  I 
want  to  live  for  poor  Molly  and  Zerrilla' — that's 
what  they  called  the  little  one  ;  I  dunno  where  they 
got  the  name.  '  I  ain't  ever  had  half  a  chance  ;  and 
now  she  's  doing  better,  and  I  believe  we  should  get 
along  after  this.'  He  set  there  cryin'  like  a  baby. 
But  he  wan't  no  baby  when  he  went  into  action.  I 
hated  to  look  at  him  after  it  was  over,  not  so  much 
because  he  'd  got  a  ball  that  was  meant  for  me  by  a 
sharpshooter — he  saw  the  devil  takin'  aim,  and  he 
jumped  to  warn  me — as  because  he  didn't  look  like 
Jim ;  he  looked  like — fun  ;  all  desperate  and  savage. 
I  guess  he  died  hard." 

The  story  made  its  impression,  and  Lapham  saw 
it.  "  Now  I  say,"  he  resumed,  as  if  he  felt  that  he 
was  going  to  do  himself  justice,  and  say  something 
to  heighten  the  effect  his  story  had  produced.  At 
the  same  time  he  was  aware  of  a  certain  want  of 
clearness.  He  had  the  idea,  but  it  floated  vague, 
elusive,  in  his  brain.  He  looked  about  as  if  for 
something  to  precipitate  it  in  tangible  shape. 

"  Apollinaris  1 "  asked  Charles  Bellingham,  handing 
the  bottle  from  the  other  side.  He  had  drawn  his 
chair  closer  than  the  rest  to  Lapham's,  and  was 
listening  with  great  interest.  When  Mrs.  Corey 
asked  him  to  meet  Lapham,  he  accepted  gladly. 
"  You  know  I  go  in  for  that  sort  of  thing,  Anna. 
Since  Leslie's  affair  we're  rather  bound  to  do  it. 
And  I  think  we  meet  these  practical  fellows  too 
little.  There 's  always  something  original  about 


288  THE  RISE  OF 

them."  He  might  naturally  have  believed  that 
the  reward  of  his  faith  was  coming. 

"  Thanks,  I  will  take  some  of  this  wine,"  said 
Lapham,  pouring  himself  a  glass  of  Madeira  from  a 
black  and  dusty  bottle  caressed  by  a  label  bearing 
the  date  of  the  vintage.  He  tossed  off  the  wine, 
unconscious  of  its  preciousness,  and  waited  for  the 
result.  That  cloudiness  in  his  brain  disappeared 
before  it,  but  a  mere  blank  remained.  He  not  only 
could  not  remember  what  he  was  going  to  say,  but 
he  could  not  recall  what  they  had  been  talking  about. 
They  waited,  looking  at  him,  and  he  stared  at  them 
in  return.  After  a  while  he  heard  the  host  saying, 
"  Shall  we  join  the  ladies  1 " 

Lapham  went,  trying  to  think  what  had  happened. 
It  seemed  to  him  a  long  time  since  he  had  drunk 
that  wine. 

Miss  Corey  gave  him  a  cup  of  tea,  where  he  stood 
aloof  from  his  wife,  who  was  talking  with  Miss 
Kingsbury  and  Mrs.  Sewell ;  Irene  was  with  Miss 
Nanny  Corey.  He  could  not  hear  what  they  were 
talking  about ;  but  if  Penelope  had  come,  he  knew 
that  she  would  have  done  them  all  credit.  He 
meant  to  let  her  know  how  he  felt  about  her  be 
haviour  when  he  got  home.  It  was  a  shame  for  her 
to  miss  such  a  chance.  Irene  was  looking  beautiful, 
as  pretty  as  all  the  rest  of  them  put  together,  but 
she  was  not  talking,  and  Lapham  perceived  that  at 
a  dinner-party  you  ought  to  talk.  He  was  himself 
conscious  of  having  talked  very  well.  He  now  wore 
an  air  of  great  dignity,  and,  in  conversing  with  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  289 

other  gentlemen,  he  used  a  grave  and  weighty  de 
liberation.  Some  of  them  wanted  him  to  go  into 
the  library.  There  he  gave  his  ideas  of  books.  He 
said  he  had  not  much  time  for  anything  but  the 
papers  ;  but  he  was  going  to  have  a  complete  library 
in  his  new  place.  He  made  an  elaborate  acknow 
ledgment  to  Bromfield  Corey  of  his  son's  kindness 
in  suggesting  books  for  his  library ;  he  said  that  he 
had  ordered  them  all,  and  that  he  meant  to  have 
pictures.  He  asked  Mr.  Corey  who  was  about  the 
best  American  painter  going  now.  "  I  don't  set  up 
to  be  a  judge  of  pictures,  but  I  know  what  I  like," 
he  said.  He  lost  the  reserve  which  he  had  main 
tained  earlier,  and  began  to  boast.  He  himself 
introduced  the  subject  of  his  paint,  in  a  natural 
transition  from  pictures;  he  said  Mr.  Corey  must 
take  a  run  up  to  Lapham  with  him  some  day,  and 
see  the  Works ;  they  would  interest  him,  and  he 
would  drive  him  round  the  country  ;  he  kept  most 
of  his  horses  up  there,  and  he  could  show  Mr.  Corey 
some  of  the  finest  Jersey  grades  in  the  country. 
He  told  about  his  brother  William,  the  judge  at 
Dubuque  ;  and  a  farm  he  had  out  there  that  paid 
for  itself  every  year  in  wheat.  As  he  cast  off  all  fear, 
his  voice  rose,  and  he  hammered  his  arm-chair  with 
the  thick  of  his  hand  for  emphasis.  Mr.  Corey 
seemed  impressed ;  he  sat  perfectly  quiet,  listening, 
and  Lapham  saw  the  other  gentlemen  stop  in  their 
talk  every  now  and  then  to  listen.  After  this  proof 
of  his  ability  to  interest  them,  he  would  have  liked 
to  have  Mrs.  Lapham  suggest  again  that  he  was 
T 


290  THE  RISE  OF 

unequal  to  their  society,  or  to  the  society  of  anybody 
else.  He  surprised  himself  by  his  ease  among  men 
whose  names  had  hitherto  overawed  him.  He  got 
to  calling  Bromfield  Corey  by  his  surname  alone. 
He  did  not  understand  why  young  Corey  seemed  so 
preoccupied,  and  he  took  occasion  to  tell  the  company 
how  he  had  said  to  his  wife  the  first  time  he  saw 
that  fellow  that  he  could  make  a  man  of  him  if  he 
had  him  in  the  business ;  and  he  guessed  he  was  not 
mistaken.  He  began  to  tell  stories  of  the  different 
young  men  he  had  had  in  his  employ.  At  last  he 
had  the  talk  altogether  to  himself ;  no  one  else 
talked,  and  he  talked  unceasingly.  It  was  a  great 
time  ;  it  was  a  triumph. 

He  was  in  this  successful  mood  when  word  came 
to  him  that  Mrs.  Lapham  was  going ;  Tom  Corey 
seemed  to  have  brought  it,  but  he  was  not  sure. 
Anyway,  he  was  not  going  to  hurry.  He  made 
cordial  invitations  to  each  of  the  gentlemen  to  drop 
in  and  see  him  at  his  office,  and  would  not  be  satis 
fied  till  he  had  exacted  a  promise  from  each.  He 
told  Charles  Bellingham  that  he  liked  him,  and 
assured  James  Bellingham  that  it  had  always  been 
his  ambition  to  know  him,  and  that  if  any  one  had 
said  when  he  first  came  to  Boston  that  in  less  than 
ten  years  he  should  be  hobnobbing  with  Jim  Belling 
ham,  he  should  have  told  that  person  he  lied.  He 
would  have  told  anybody  he  Jied  that  had  told  him 
ten  years  ago  that  a  son  of  Bromfield  Corey  would 
have  come  and  asked  him  to  take  him  into  the  busi 
ness.  Ten  years  ago  he,  Silas  Lapham,  had  come  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  291 

Boston  a  little  worse  off  than  nothing  at  all,  for  he 
was  in  debt  for  half  the  money  that  he  had  bought 
out  his  partner  with,  and  here  he  was  now  worth  a 
million,  and  meeting  you  gentlemen  like  one  of  you. 
And  every  cent  of  that  was  honest  money, — no 
speculation, — every  copper  of  it  for  value  received. 
And  here,  only  the  other  day,  his  old  partner,  who 
had  been  going  to  the  dogs  ever  since  he  went  out 
of  the  business,  came  and  borrowed  twenty  thousand 
dollars  of  him  !  Lapham  lent  it  because  his  wife 
wanted  him  to  :  she  had  always  felt  bad  about  the 
fellow's  having  to  go  out  of  the  business. 

He  took  leave  of  Mr.  Sewell  with  patronising 
affection,  and  bade  him  come  to  him  if  he  ever  got 
into  a  tight  place  with  his  parish  work ;  he  would 
let  him  have  all  the  money  he  wanted ;  he  had 
more  money  than  he  knew  Avhat  to  do  with.  "  Why, 
when  your  wife  sent  to  mine  last  fall,"  he  said, 
turning  to  Mr.  Corey,  "  I  drew  my  cheque  for  five 
hundred  dollars,  but  my  wife  wouldn't  take  more 
than  one  hundred ;  said  she  wasn't  going  to  show  off 
before  Mrs.  Corey.  I  call  that  a  pretty  good  joke 
on  Mrs.  Corey.  I  must  tell  her  how  Mrs.  Lapham 
done  her  out  of  a  cool  four  hundred  dollars." 

He  started  toward  the  door  of  the  drawing-room 
to  take  leave  of  the  ladies ;  but  Tom  Corey  was  at 
his  elbow,  saying,  "  I  think  Mrs.  Lapham  is  waiting 
for  you  below,  sir,"  and  in  obeying  the  direction 
Corey  gave  him  toward  another  door  he  forgot  all 
about  his  purpose,  and  came  away  without  saying 
good-night  to  his  hostess. 


292  THE  RISE  OF 

Mrs.  Lapham  had  not  known  how  soon  she  ought 
to  go,  and  had  no  idea  that  in  her  quality  of  chief 
guest  she  was  keeping  the  others.  She  stayed  till 
eleven  o'clock,  and  was  a  little  frightened  when  she 
found  what  time  it  was ;  but  Mrs.  Corey,  without 
pressing  her  to  stay  longer,  had  said  it  was  not  at 
all  late.  She  and  Irene  had  had  a  perfect  time. 
Everybody  had  been  very  polite ;  on  the  way  home 
they  celebrated  the  amiability  of  both  the  Miss 
Coreys  and  of  Miss  Kingsbury.  Mrs.  Lapham 
thought  that  Mrs.  Bellingham  was  about  the  pleasant- 
est  person  she  ever  saw ;  she  had  told  her  all  about 
her  married  daughter  who  had  married  an  inventor 
and  gone  to  live  in  Omaha — a  Mrs.  Blake. 

"If  it's  that  car-wheel  Blake,"  said  Lapham 
proudly,  "  I  know  all  about  him.  I  Ve  sold  him  tons 
of  the  paint." 

"  Pooh,  papa !  How  you  do  smell  of  smoking ! " 
cried  Irene. 

"  Pretty  strong,  eh  1 "  laughed  Lapham,  letting 
down  a  window  of  the  carriage.  His  heart  was 
throbbing  wildly  in  the  close  air,  and  he  was  glad  of 
the  rush  of  cold  that  came  in,  though  it  stopped  his 
tongue,  and  he  listened  more  and  more  drowsily  to 
the  rejoicings  that  his  wife  and  daughter  exchanged. 
He  meant  to  have  them  wake  Penelope  up  and  tell 
her  what  she  had  lost ;  but  when  he  reached  home 
he  was  too  sleepy  to  suggest  it.  He  fell  asleep  as 
soon  as  his  head  touched  the  pillow,  full  of  supreme 
triumph. 

But  in  the  morning  his  skull  was  sore  with  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  293 

unconscious,  night-long  ache  ;  and  he  rose  cross  and 
taciturn.  They  had  a  silent  breakfast.  In  the  cold 
grey  light  of  the  morning  the  glories  of  the  night 
before  showed  poorer.  Here  and  there  a  painful 
doubt  obtruded  itself  and  marred  them  with  its 
awkward  shadow.  Penelope  sent  down  word  that 
she  was  not  well,  and  was  not  coming  to  breakfast, 
and  Lapham  was  glad  to  go  to  his  office  without  see 
ing  her. 

He  was  severe  and  silent  all  day  with  his  clerks, 
and  peremptory  with  customers.  Of  Corey  he  was 
slyly  observant,  and  as  the  day  wore  away  he  grew 
more  restively  conscious.  He  sent  out  word  by  his 
office-boy  that  he  would  like  to  see  Mr.  Corey  for  a 
few  minutes  after  closing.  The  type- writer  girl  had 
lingered  too,  as  if  she  wished  to  speak  with  him,  and 
Corey  stood  in  abeyance  as  she  went  toward  Lap- 
ham's  door. 

"  Can't  see  you  to-night,  Zerrilla,"  he  said  bluffly, 
but  not  unkindly.  "  Perhaps  I  '11  call  at  the  house, 
if  it's  important." 

"It  is,"  said  the  girl,  with  a  spoiled  air  of  in 
sistence. 

"Well,"  said  Lapham,  and,  nodding  to  Corey  to 
enter,  he  closed  the  door  upon  her.  Then  he  turned 
to  the  young  man  and  demanded  :  "  "Was  I  drunk 
last  night?" 


XV. 

LAPHAM'S  strenuous  face  was  broken  up  with  the 
emotions  that  had  forced  him  to  this  question  : 
shame,  fear  of  the  things  that  must  have  been 
thought  of  him,  mixed  with  a  faint  hope  that  he 
might  be  mistaken,  which  died  out  at  the  shocked 
and  pitying  look  in  Corey's  eyes. 

"  Was  I  drunk  ?"  he  repeated.  "  I  ask  you,  be 
cause  I  was  never  touched  by  drink  in  my  life  before, 
and  I  don't  know."  He  stood  with  his  huge  hands 
trembling  on  the  back  of  his  chair,  and  his  dry  lips 
apart,  as  he  stared  at  Corey. 

"  That  is  what  every  one  understood,  Colonel 
Lapham,"  said  the  young  man.  "  Every  one  saw 
how  it  was.  Don't " 

"  Did  they  talk  it  over  after  I  left  1"  asked  Lapham 
vulgarly. 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  Corey,  blushing,  "  my  father 
doesn't  talk  his  guests  over  with  one  another."  He 
added,  with  youthful  superfluity,  "  You  were  among 
gentlemen." 

"I  was  the  only  one  that  wasn't  a  gentleman 
there!"  lamented  Lapham.  "I  disgraced  you!  I 
disgraced  my  family  !  I  mortified  your  father  before 

294 


THE  RISE  OP  SILAS  LAPHAM.  295 

his  friends  !"  His  head  dropped.  "I  showed  that 
I  wasn't  fit  to  go  with  you.  I  'm  not  fit  for  any 
decent  place.  What  did  I  say  ?  AVhat  did  I  do  I" 
he  asked,  suddenly  lifting  his  head  and  confronting 
Corey.  "  Out  with  it !  If  you  could  bear  to  see  it 
and  hear  it,  I  had  ought  to  bear  to  know  it !" 

"  There  was  nothing — really  nothing,"  said  Corey. 
"  Beyond  the  fact  that  you  were  not  quite  yourself, 
there  was  nothing  whatever.  My  father  did  speak 
of  it  to  me,"  he  confessed,  "  when  we  were  alone. 
He  said  that  he  was  afraid  we  had  not  been  thought 
ful  of  you,  if  you  were  in  the  habit  of  taking  only 
water;  I  told  him  I  had  not  seen  wine  at  your 
table.  The  others  said  nothing  about  you." 

"  Ah,  but  what  did  they  think  1" 

"  Probably  what  we  did  :  that  it  was  purely  a 
misfortune — an  accident." 

"  I  wasn't  fit  to  be  there,"  persisted  Lapham.  "  Do 
you  want  to  leave  1"  he  asked,  with  savage  abruptness. 

"  Leave  ? "  faltered  the  young  man. 

"  Yes  ;  quit  the  business  ?  Cut  the  whole  con 
nection  ? " 

"  I  haven't  the  remotest  idea  of  it !"  cried  Corey 
in  amazement.  "  Why  in  the  world  should  1 1 " 

"Because  you're  a  gentleman,  and  I'm  not,  and 
it  ain't  right  I  should  be  over  you.  If  you  want  to 
go,  I  know  some  parties  that  would  be  glad  to  get 
you.  I  will  give  you  up  if  you  want  to  go  before 
anything  worse  happens,  and  I  shan't  blame  you. 
I  can  help  you  to  something  better  than  I  can  offer 
you  here,  and  I  will." 


296  THE  RISE  OF 

"  There 's  no  question  of  my  going,  unless  you  wish 
it,"  said  Corey.  "  If  you  do " 

"  Will  you  tell  your  father,"  interrupted  Lapham, 
"  that  I  had  a  notion  all  the  time  that  I  was  acting 
the  drunken  blackguard,  and  that  I  've  suffered  for 
it  all  day  ?  Will  you  tell  him  I  don't  want  him 
to  notice  me  if  we  ever  meet,  and  that  I  know  I  'm 
not  fit  to  associate  with  gentlemen  in  anything  but  a 
business  way,  if  I  am  that  1 " 

"  Certainly  I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind,"  re 
torted  Corey.  "  I  can't  listen  to  you  any  longer. 
What  you  say  is  shocking  to  me — shocking  in  a  way 
you  can't  think" 

"  Why,  man  !"  exclaimed  Lapham,  with  astonish 
ment  ;  "if  7 can  stand  it,  you  can  !" 

"  No,"  said  Corey,  with  a  sick  look,  "  that  doesn't 
follow.  You  may  denounce  yourself,  if  you  will ; 
but  I  have  my  reasons  for  refusing  to  hear  you — my 
reasons  why  I  can't  hear  you.  If  you  say  another 
word  I  must  go  away." 

"/  don't  understand  you,"  faltered  Lapham,  in 
bewilderment,  which  absorbed  even  his  shame. 

"  You  exaggerate  the  effect  of  what  has  happened," 
said  the  young  man.  "  It 's  enough,  more  than 
enough,  for  you  to  have  mentioned  the  matter  to  me, 
and  I  think  it 's  unbecoming  in  me  to  hear  you." 

He  made  a  movement  toward  the  door,  but  Lap- 
ham  stopped  him  with  the  tragic  humility  of  his 
appeal.  "  Don't  go  yet !  I  can't  let  you.  I  've  dis 
gusted  you, — I  see  that ;  but  I  didn't  mean  to.  I — 
I  take  it  back." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  297 

"  Oh,  there 's  nothing  to  take  back,"  said  Corey, 
with  a  repressed  shudder  for  the  abasement  which 
he  had  seen.  "  But  let  us  say  no  more  about  it — 
think  no  more.  There  wasn't  one  of  the  gentlemen 
present  last  night  who  didn't  understand  the  matter 
precisely  as  my  father  and  I  did,  and  that  fact  must 
end  it  between  us  two." 

He  went  out  into  the  larger  office  beyond,  leaving 
Lapham  helpless  to  prevent  his  going.  It  had  be 
come  a  vital  necessity  with  him  to  think  the  best  of 
Lapham,  but  his  mind  was  in  a  whirl  of  whatever 
thoughts  were  most  injurious.  He  thought  of  him 
the  night  before  in  the  company  of  those  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  and  he  quivered  in  resentment  of  his 
vulgar,  braggart,  uncouth  nature.  He  recognised 
his  own  allegiance  to  the  exclusiveness  to  which  he 
was  born  and  bred,  as  a  man  perceives  his  duty  to 
his  country  when  her  rights  are  invaded.  His  eye 
fell  on  the  porter  going  about  in  his  shirt-sleeves  to 
make  the  place  fast  for  the  night,  and  he  said  to 
himself  that  Dennis  was  not  more  plebeian  than  his 
master ;  that  the  gross  appetites,  the  blunt  sense, 
the  purblind  ambition,  the  stupid  arrogance  were 
the  same  in  both,  and  the  difference  was  in  a  brute 
will  that  probably  left  the  porter  the  gentler  man  of 
the  two.  The  very  innocence  of  Lapham's  life  in 
the  direction  in  which  he  had  erred  wrought  against 
him  in  the  young  man's  mood  :  it  contained  the 
insult  of  clownish  inexperience.  Amidst  the  stings 
and  flashes  of  his  wounded  pride,  all  the  social  tradi 
tions,  all  the  habits  of  feeling,  which  he  had  silenced 


298  THE  RISE  OF 

more  and  more  by  force  of  will  during  the  past 
months,  asserted  their  natural  sway,  and  he  rioted 
in  his  contempt  of  the  offensive  boor,  who  was  even 
more  offensive  in  his  shame  than  in  his  trespass. 
He  said  to  himself  that  he  was  a  Corey,  as  if  that 
were  somewhat ;  yet  he  knew  that  at  the  bottom  of 
his  heart  all  the  time  was  that  which  must  control 
him  at  last,  and  which  seemed  sweetly  to  be  suffer 
ing  his  rebellion,  secure  of  his  submission  in  the  end. 
It  was  almost  with  the  girl's  voice  that  it  seemed  to 
plead  with  him,  to  undo  in  him,  effect  by  effect,  the 
work  of  his  indignant  resentment,  to  set  all  things 
in  another  and  fairer  light,  to  give  him  hopes,  to 
suggest  palliations,  to  protest  against  injustices.  It 
was  in  Lapham's  favour  that  he  was  so  guiltless  in 
the  past,  and  now  Corey  asked  himself  if  it  were  the 
first  time  he  could  have  wished  a  guest  at  his  father's 
table  to  have  taken  less  wine ;  whether  Lapham  was 
not  rather  to  be  honoured  for  not  knowing  how  to 
contain  his  folly  where  a  veteran  transgressor  might 
have  held  his  tongue.  He  asked  himself,  with  a 
thrill  of  sudden  remorse,  whether,  when  Lapham 
humbled  himself  in  the  dust  so  shockingly,  he  had 
shown  him  the  sympathy  to  which  such  abandon  had 
the  right ;  and  he  had  to  own  that  he  had  met  him 
on  the  gentlemanly  ground,  sparing  himself  and 
asserting  the  superiority  of  his  sort,  and  not  recog 
nising  that  Lapham's  humiliation  came  from  the 
sense  of  wrong,  which  he  had  helped  to  accumulate 
upon  him  by  superfinely  standing  aloof  and  refusing 
to  touch  him. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  299 

He  shut  his  desk  and  hurried  out  into  the  early 
night,  not  to  go  anywhere,  but  to  walk  up  and  down, 
to  try  to  find  his  way  out  of  the  chaos,  which  now 
seemed  ruin,  and  now  the  materials  out  of  which 
fine  actions  and  a  happy  life  might  be  shaped. 
Three  hours  later  he  stood  at  Lapham's  door. 

At  times  what  he  now  wished  to  do  had  seemed 
for  ever  impossible,  and  again  it  had  seemed  as  if  he 
could  not  wait  a  moment  longer.  He  had  not  been 
careless,  but  very  mindful  of  what  he  knew  must  be 
the  feelings  of  his  own  family  in  regard  to  the  Lap- 
hams,  and  he  had  not  concealed  from  himself  that 
his  family  had  great  reason  and  justice  on  their  side 
in  not  wishing  him  to  alienate  himself  from  their 
common  life  and  associations.  The  most  that  he 
could  urge  to  himself  was  that  they  had  not  all  the 
reason  and  justice  ;  but  he  had  hesitated  and  delayed 
because  they  had  so  much.  Often  he  could  not  make 
it  appear  right  that  he  should  merely  please  himself  in 
what  chiefly  concerned  himself.  He  perceived  how 
far  apart  in  all  their  experiences  and  ideals  the  Lap- 
ham  girls  and  his  sisters  were ;  how  different  Mrs. 
Lapham  was  from  his  mother ;  how  grotesquely 
unlike  were  his  father  and  Lapham  ;  and  the  dis 
parity  had  not  always  amused  him. 

He  had  often  taken  it  very  seriously,  and  some 
times  he  said  that  he  must  forego  the  hope  on  which 
his  heart  was  set  There  had  been  many  times  in 
the  past  months  when  he  had  said  that  he  must  go 
no  further,  and  as  often  as  he  had  taken  this  stand 
he  had  yielded  it,  upon  this  or  that  excuse,  which 


300  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

he  was  aware  of  trumping  up.  It  was  part  of  the 
complication  that  he  should  be  unconscious  of  the 
injury  he  might  be  doing  to  some  one  besides  his 
family  and  himself ;  this  was  the  defect  of  his  diffi 
dence  ;  and  it  had  come  to  him  in  a  pang  for  the 
first  time  when  his  mother  said  that  she  would  not 
kave  the  Laphams  think  she  wished  to  make  more 
of  the  acquaintance  than  he  did ;  and  then  it  had 
come  too  late.  Since  that  he  had  suffered  quite  as 
much  from  the  fear  that  it  might  not  be  as  that  it 
might  be  so  ;  and  now,  in  the  mood,  romantic  and 
exalted,  in  which  he  found  himself  concerning  Lap- 
ham,  he  was  as  far  as  might  be  from  vain  confidence. 
He  ended  the  question  in  his  own  mind  by  affirming 
to  himself  that  he  was  there,  first  of  all,  to  see 
Lapham  and  give  him  an  ultimate  proof  of  his  own 
perfect  faith  and  unabated  respect,  and  to  offer  him 
what  reparation  this  involved  for  that  want  of 
sympathy — of  humanity — which  he  had  shown. 


XVI. 

THE  Nova  Scotia  second-girl  who  answered  Corey's 
ring  said  that  Lapham  had  not  come  home  yet. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  young  man,  hesitating  on  the 
outer  step. 

"  I  guess  you  better  come  in,"  said  the  girl,  "  I  '11 
go  and  see  when  they're  expecting  him." 

Corey  was  in  the  mood  to  be  swayed  by  any 
chance.  He  obeyed  the  suggestion  of  the  second- 
girl's  patronising  friendliness,  and  let  her  shut  him 
into  the  drawing-room,  while  she  went  upstairs  to 
announce  him  to  Penelope. 

"  Did  you  tell  him  father  wasn't  at  home  ?" 

"Yes.  He  seemed  so  kind  of  disappointed,  I 
told  him  to  come  in,  and  I  'd  see  when  he  would 
be  in,"  said  the  girl,  with  the  human  interest  which 
sometimes  replaces  in  the  American  domestic  the 
servile  deference  of  other  countries. 

A  gleam  of  amusement  passed  over  Penelope's 
face,  as  she  glanced  at  herself  in  the  glass.  "  Well," 
she  cried  finally,  dropping  from  her  shoulders  the 
light  shawl  in  which  she  had  been  huddled  over  a 
book  when  Corey  rang,  "  I  will  go  down." 

"All  right,"  said  the  girl,  and  Penelope  began 

301 


302  THE  RISE  OF 

hastily  to  amend  the  disarray  of  her  hair,  which  she 
tumbled  into  a  mass  on  the  top  of  her  little  head, 
setting  off  the  pale  dark  of  her  complexion  with  a 
flash  of  crimson  ribbon  at  her  throat.  She  moved 
across  the  carpet  once  or  twice  with  the  quaint  grace 
that  belonged  to  her  small  figure,  made  a  dissatisfied 
grimace  at  it  in  the  glass,  caught  a  handkerchief  out 
of  a  drawer  and  slid  it  into  her  pocket,  and  then 
descended  to  Corey. 

The  Lapham  drawing-room  in  Nankeen  Square 
was  in  the  parti-coloured  paint  which  the  Colonel 
had  hoped  to  repeat  in  his  new  house :  the  trim  of 
the  doors  and  windows  was  in  light  green  and  the 
panels  in  salmon;  the  walls  were  a  plain  tint  of 
French  grey  paper,  divided  by  gilt  mouldings  into 
broad  panels  with  a  wide  stripe  of  red  velvet  paper 
running  up  the  corners ;  the  chandelier  was  of 
massive  imitation  bronze ;  the  mirror  over  the 
mantel  rested  on  a  fringed  mantel-cover  of  green 
reps,  and  heavy  curtains  of  that  stuff  hung  from  gilt 
lambrequin  frames  at  the  window ;  the  carpet  was 
of  a  small  pattern  in  crude  green,  which,  at  the 
time  Mrs.  Lapham  bought  it,  covered  half  the  new 
floors  in  Boston.  In  the  panelled  spaces  on  the  walls 
were  some  stone-coloured  landscapes,  representing 
the  mountains  and  canons  of  the  West,  which  the 
Colonel  and  his  wife  had  visited  on  one  of  the  early 
official  railroad  excursions.  In  front  of  the  long 
windows  looking  into  the  Square  were  statues, 
kneeling  figures  which  turned  their  backs  upon  the 
company  within-doors,  and  represented  allegories  of 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  303 

Faith  and  Prayer  to  people  without.  A  white 
marble  group  of  several  figures,  expressing  an  Italian 
conception  of  Lincoln  Freeing  the  Slaves, — a  Latin 
negro  and  his  wife, — with  our  Eagle  flapping  his 
wings  in  approval,  at  Lincoln's  feet,  occupied  one 
corner,  and  balanced  the  what-not  of  an  earlier 
period  in  another.  These  phantasms  added  their 
chill  to  that  imparted  by  the  tone  of  the  walls,  the 
landscapes,  and  the  carpets,  and  contributed  to  the 
violence  of  the  contrast  when  the  chandelier  was 
lighted  up  full  glare,  and  the  heat  of  the  whole  fur 
nace  welled  up  from  the  registers  into  the  quivering 
atmosphere  on  one  of  the  rare  occasions  when  the 
Laphams  invited  company. 

Corey  had  not  been  in  this  room  before ;  the 
family  had  always  received  him  in  what  they  called 
the  sitting-room.  Penelope  looked  into  this  first, 
and  then  she  looked  into  the  parlour,  with  a  smile 
that  broke  into  a  laugh  as  she  discovered  him 
standing  under  the  single  burner  which  the  second- 
girl  had  lighted  for  him  in  the  chandelier. 

"  I  don't  understand  how  you  came  to  be  put  in 
there,"  she  said,  as  she  led  the  way  to  the  cozier 
place,  "  unless  it  was  because  Alice  thought  you 
were  only  here  on  probation,  anyway.  Father  hasn't 
got  home  yet,  but  I  'm  expecting  him  every  moment; 
I  don't  know  what's  keeping  him.  Did  the  girl 
tell  you  that  mother  and  Irene  were  out  ? " 

"  No,  she  didn't  say.  It 's  very  good  of  you  to 
see  me."  She  had  not  seen  the  exaltation  which  he 
had  been  feeling,  he  perceived  with  half  a  sigh  ;  it 


304  THE  RISE  OF 

must  all  be  upon  this  lower  level ;  perhaps  it  was 
best  so.  "  There  was  something  I  wished  to  say  to 

your  father 1  hope,"  he  broke  off,  "  you  're  better 

to-night." 

"  Oh  yes,  thank  you,"  said  Penelope,  remembering 
that  she  had  not  been  well  enough  to  go  to  dinner 
the  night  before. 

"  We  all  missed  you  very  much." 

"  Oh,  thank  you  !  I  'm  afraid  you  wouldn't  have 
missed  me  if  I  had  been  there." 

"  Oh  yes,  we  should,"  said  Corey,  "  I  assure  you." 

They  looked  at  each  other. 

"  I  really  think  I  believed  I  was  saying  some 
thing,"  said  the  girl 

"  And  so  did  I,"  replied  the  young  man.  They 
laughed  rather  wildly,  and  then  they  both  became 
rather  grave. 

He  took  the  chair  she  gave  him,  and  looked  across 
at  her,  where  she  sat  on  the  other  side  of  the  hearth, 
in  a  chair  lower  than  his,  with  her  hands  dropped  in 
her  lap,  and  the  back  of  her  head  on  her  shoulders 
as  she  looked  up  at  him.  The  soft-coal  fire  in  the 
grate  purred  and  flickered;  the  drop-light  cast  a 
mellow  radiance  on  her  face.  She  let  her  eyes  fall, 
and  then  lifted  them  for  an  irrelevant  glance  at  the 
clock  on  the  mantel. 

"Mother  and  Irene  have  gone  to  the  Spanish 
Students'  concert." 

"  Oh,  have  they  ?  "  asked  Corey ;  and  he  put  his 
hat,  which  he  had  been  holding  in  his  hand,  on  the 
floor  beside  his  chair. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  305 

She  looked  down  at  it  for  no  reason,  and  then 
looked  up  at  his  face  for  no  other,  and  turned  a 
little  red.  Corey  turned  a  little  red  himself.  She 
who  had  always  been  so  easy  with  him  now  became 
a  little  constrained. 

"  Do  you  know  how  warm  it  is  eut-of -doors  1 "  he 
asked. 

"  No ;  is  it  warm  ?     I  haven't  been  out  all  day." 

"  It 's  like  a  summer  night." 

She  turned  her  face  towards  the  fire,  and  then 
started  abruptly.  "  Perhaps  it 's  too  warm  for  you 
here  ? " 

"  Oh  no,  it's  very  comfortable." 

"  I  suppose  it 's  the  cold  of  the  last  few  days 
that's  still  in  the  house.  I  was  reading  with  a 
shawl  on  when  you  came." 

"  I  interrupted  you." 

"  Oh  no.  I  had  finished  the  book.  I  was  just 
looking  over  it  again." 

"  Do  you  like  to  read  books  over  ? " 

"  Yes ;  books  that  I  like  at  all." 

"  What  was  it  1 "  asked  Corey. 

The  girl  hesitated.  "  It  has  rather  a  senti 
mental  name.  Did  you  ever  read  it  ? — Tears,  Idle 
Tears." 

"  Oh  yes ;  they  were  talking  of  that  last  night ; 
it 's  a  famous  book  with  ladies.  They  break  their 
hearts  over  it.  Did  it  make  you  cry  ?" 

"  Oh,  it 's  pretty  easy  to  cry  over  a  book,"  said 
Penelope,  laughing ;  "  and  that  one  is  very  natural 
till  you  come  to  the  main  point.  Then  the  natural- 
U 


306 

ness  of  all  the  rest  makes  that  seem  natural  too ; 
but  I  guess  it 's  rather  forced." 

"  Her  giving  him  up  to  the  other  one  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  simply  because  she  happened  to  know  that 
the  other  one  had  cared  for  him  first.  Why  should 
she  have  done  it$  What  right  had  she  ?" 

"  I  don't  know.  I  suppose  that  the  self-sacri 
fice " 

"  But  it  wasn't  self-sacrifice — or  not  self-sacrifice 
alone.  She  was  sacrificing  him  too ;  and  for  some 
one  who  couldn't  appreciate  him  half  as  much  as 
she  could.  I  'm  provoked  with  myself  when  I  think 
how  I  cried  over  that  book — for  I  did  cry.  It's 
silly — it 's  wicked  for  any  one  to  do  what  that  girl 
did.  Why  can't  they  let  people  have  a  chance  to 
behave  reasonably  in  stories  1 " 

"Perhaps  they  couldn't  make  it  so  attractive," 
suggested  Corey,  with  a  smile. 

"  It  would  be  novel,  at  any  rate,"  said  the  girl. 
"  But  so  it  would  in  real  life,  I  suppose,"  she  added. 

"  I  don't  know.  Why  shouldn't  people  in  love 
behave  sensibly  I" 

"  That 's  a  very  serious  question,"  said  Penelope 
gravely.  "  /  couldn't  answer  it,"  and  she  left  him 
the  embarrassment  of  supporting  an  inquiry  which 
she  had  certainly  instigated  herself.  She  seemed  to 
have  finally  recovered  her  own  ease  in  doing  this. 
"  Do  you  admire  our  autumnal  display,  Mr.  Corey  1 " 

"Your  display?" 

"  The  trees  in  the  Square.  We  think  it 's  quite 
equal  to  an  opening  at  Jordan  &  Marsh's." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  307 

"  Ah,  I  'm  afraid  you  wouldn't  let  me  be  serious 
even  about  your  maples." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  should — if  you  like  to  be  serious." 

"  Don't  you  1 " 

11  Well  not  about  serious  matters.  That 's  the 
reason  that  book  made  me  cry." 

"  You  make  fun  of  everything.  Miss  Irene  was 
telling  me  last  night  about  you." 

"  Then  it 's  no  use  for  me  to  deny  it  so  soon.  I 
must  give  Irene  a  talking  to." 

"  I  hope  you  won't  forbid  her  to  talk  about  you  !" 

She  had  taken  up  a  fan  from  the  table,  and  held 
it,  now  between  her  face  and  the  fire,  and  now  be 
tween  her  face  and  him.  Her  little  visage,  with 
that  arch,  lazy  look  in  it,  topped  by  its  mass  of 
dusky  hair,  and  dwindling  from  the  full  cheeks  to 
the  small  chin,  had  a  Japanese  effect  in  the  subdued 
light,  and  it  had  the  charm  which  comes  to  any  woman 
with  happiness.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  how  much 
of  this  she  perceived  that  he  felt.  They  talked 
about  other  things  a  while,  and  then  she  came  back 
to  what  he  had  said.  She  glanced  at  him  obliquely 
round  her  fan,  and  stopped  moving  it.  "  Does 
Irene  talk  about  me  ? "  she  asked. 

"  I  think  so — yes.  Perhaps  it 's  only  I  who  talk 
about  you.  You  must  blame  me  if  it 's  wrong,"  he 
returned. 

"  Oh,  I  didn't  say  it  was  wrong,"  she  replied. 
"  But  I  hope  if  you  said  anything  very  bad  of  me 
you  '11  let  me  know  what  it  was,  so  that  I  can  re 
form " 


308  THE  RISE  OF 

"  No,  don't  change,  please ! "  cried  the  young 
man. 

Penelope  caught  her  breath,  but  went  on  reso 
lutely, — "  or  rebuke  you  for  speaking  evil  of  digni 
ties."  She  looked  down  at  the  fan,  now  flat  in  her 
lap,  and  tried  to  govern  her  head,  but  it  trembled, 
and  she  remained  looking  down.  Again  they  let 
the  talk  stray,  and  then  it  was  he  who  brought  it 
back  to  themselves,  as  if  it  had  not  left  them. 

"  I  have  to  talk  of  you,"  said  Corey,  "  because  I 
get  to  talk  to  you  so  seldom." 

"  You  mean  that  I  do  all  the  talking  when  we  're 
— together  1 "  She  glanced  sidewise  at  him  ;  but 
she  reddened  after  speaking  the  last  word. 

"We're  so  seldom  together,"  he  pursued. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean " 

"  Sometimes  I  've  thought — I  Ve  been  afraid — 
that  you  avoided  me." 

"Avoided  you?" 

"Yes  !     Tried  not  to  be  alone  with  me." 

She  might  have  told  him  that  there  was  no  reason 
why  she  should  be  alone  with  him,  and  that  it  was 
very  strange  he  should  make  this  complaint  of  her. 
But  she  did  not.  She  kept  looking  down  at  the 
fan,  and  then  she  lifted  her  burning  face  and  looked 
at  the  clock  again.  "Mother  and  Irene  will  be 
sorry  to  miss  you,"  she  gasped. 

He  instantly  rose  and  came  towards  her.  She 
rose  too,  and  mechanically  put  out  her  hand.  He 
took  it  as  if  to  say  good-night.  "  I  didn't  mean  to 
send  you  away,"  she  besought  him. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  309 

"Oh,  I'm  not  going,"  he  answered  simply.  "I 
wanted  to  say — to  say  that  it's  I  who  make  her 

talk  about  you.  To  say  I There  is  something 

I  want  to  say  to  you ;  I  've  said  it  so  often  to  myself 
that  I  feel  as  if  you  must  know  it."  She  stood 
quite  still,  letting  him  keep  her  hand,  and  question 
ing  his  face  with  a  bewildered  gaze.  "You  must 
know — she  must  have  told  you — she  must  have 

guessed "  Penelope  turned  white,  but  outwardly 

quelled  the  panic  that  sent  the  blood  to  her  heart. 
"  I — I  didn't  expect — I  hoped  to  have  seen  your 

father — but  I  must  speak  now,  whatever I  love 

you  ! " 

She  freed  her  hand  from  both  of  those  he  had 
closed  upon  it,  and  went  back  from  him  across  the 
room  with  a  sinuous  spring.  "Mef"  Whatever 
potential  complicity  had  lurked  in  her  heart,  his 
words  brought  her  only  immeasurable  dismay. 

He  came  towards  her  again.  "Yes,  you.  Who 
else  ?" 

She  fended  him  off  with  an  imploring  gesture.  "  I 
thought — I — it  was " 

She  shut  her  lips  tight,  and  stood  looking  at  him 
where  he  remained  in  silent  amaze.  Then  her 
words  came  again,  shudder ingly.  "  Oh,  what  have 
you  done  1 " 

"  Upon  my  soul,"  he  said,  with  a  vague  smile,  "  I 
don't  know.  I  hope  no  harm  1 " 

"  Oh,  don't  laugh  ! "  she  cried,  laughing  hysteri 
cally  herself.  "  Unless  you  want  me  to  think  you 
the  greatest  wretch  in  the  world ! " 


310  THE  RISE  OF 

"  II  "  he  responded.  "For  heaven's  sake  tell  me 
what  you  mean  ! " 

"  You  know  I  can't  tell  you.  Can  you  say — can 
you  put  your  hand  on  your  heart  and  say  that — you 
— say  you  never  meant — that  you  meant  me — all 
along?" 

"  Yes  ! — yes !  Who  else  1  I  came  here  to  see 
your  father,  and  to  tell  him  that  I  wished  to  tell 

you  this — to  ask  him But  what  does  it  matter  ? 

You  must  have  known  it — you  must  have  seen — and 
it 's  for  you  to  answer  me.  I  Ve  been  abrupt,  I 
know,  and  I  Ve  startled  you  ;  but  if  you  love  me, 
you  can  forgive  that  to  my  loving  you  so  long  before 
I  spoke." 

She  gazed  at  him  with  parted  lips. 

"  Oh,  mercy  !  What  shall  I  do  ?  If  it 's  true— 
what  you  say — you  must  go  ! "  she  said.  "  And 
you  must  never  come  any  more.  Do  you  promise 
that  1 " 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  the  young  man.  "  Why 
should  I  promise  such  a  thing — so  abominably 
wrong  ?  I  could  obey  if  you  didn't  love  me " 

"Oh,  I  don't!  Indeed  I  don't!  Now  will  you 
obey." 

"  No.     I  don't  believe  you." 

"Oh!" 

E[e  possessed  himself  of  her  hand  again. 

"  My  love — my  dearest !  What  is  this  trouble, 
that  you  can't  tell  it  ?  It  can't  be  anything  about 
yourself.  If  it  is  anything  about  any  one  else,  it 
wouldn't  make  the  least  difference  in  the  world,  no 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  311 

matter  what  it  was.  I  would  be  only  too  glad  to 
show  by  any  act  or  deed  I  could  that  nothing  could 
change  me  towards  you." 

"Oh,  you  don't  understand  ! " 

"  No,  I  don't.     You  must  tell  me." 

"  I  will  never  do  that." 

"  Then  I  will  stay  here  till  your  mother  comes, 
and  ask  her  what  it  is." 

"Ask  her?" 

11  Yes !  Do  you  think  I  will  give  you  up  till  I 
know  why  I  must  1" 

"  You  force  me  to  it !  Will  you  go  if  I  tell  you, 
and  never  let  any  human  creature  know  what  you 
have  said  to  me  ?  " 

"Not  unless  you  give  me  leave." 

"That  will  be  never.  Well,  then "  She 

stopped,  and  made  two  or  three  ineffectual  efforts 
to  begin  again.  "  No,  no  !  I  can't.  You  must 
go!" 

"  I  will  not  go  !" 

"  You  said  you — loved  me.     If  you  do,  you  will 

go-" 

He  dropped  the  hands  he  had  stretched  towards 
her,  and  she  hid  her  face  in  her  own. 

"  There  !"  she  said,  turning  it  suddenly  upon  him. 
"  Sit  down  there.  And  will  you  promise  me — on 
your  honour — not  to  speak — not  to  try  to  persuade 
me — not  to — touch  me  1  You  won't  touch  me  ?" 

"  I  will  obey  you,  Penelope." 

"  As  if  you  were  never  to  see  me  again  1  As  if  I 
were  dying  1" 


312  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  will  do  what  you  say.  But  I  shall  see  you 
again  ;  and  don't  talk  of  dying.  This  is  the  begin 
ning  of  life " 

"  No.  It 's  the  end,"  said  the  girl,  resuming  at 
last  something  of  the  hoarse  drawl  which  the  tumult 
of  her  feeling  had  broken  into  those  half-articulate 
appeals.  She  sat  down  too,  and  lifted  her  face  to 
wards  him.  "  It 's  the  end  of  life  for  me,  because  I 
know  now  that  I  must  have  been  playing  false  from 
the  beginning.  You  don't  know  what  I  mean,  and 
I  can  never  tell  you.  It  isn't  my  secret— it's  some 
one  else's.  You — you  must  never  come  here  again. 
I  can't  tell  you  why,  and  you  must  never  try  to 
know.  Do  you  promise  ? " 

"  You  can  forbid  me.     I  must  do  what  you  say." 

"  I  do  forbid  you,  then.  And  you  shall  not  think 
I  am  cruel " 

"  How  could  I  think  that  1" 

"  Oh,  how  hard  you  make  it !" 

Corey  laughed  for  very  despair.  "  Can  I  make  it 
easier  by  disobeying  you  1" 

"  I  know  I  am  talking  crazily.  But  I  'm  not 
crazy." 

'•  No,  no,"  he  said,  with  some  wild  notion  of 
comforting  her ;  "  but  try  to  tell  me  this  trouble  ! 
There  is  nothing  under  heaven — no  calamity,  no 
sorrow  —  that  I  wouldn't  gladly  share  with  you, 
or  take  all  upon  myself  if  I  could  ! " 

"  I  know  !     But  this  you  can't.     Oh,  my " 

"  Dearest  !  Wait !  Think  !  Let  me  ask  your 
mother — your  father " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  313 

She  gave  a  cry. 

"  No  !  If  you  do  that,  you  will  make  me  hate 
you  !  Will  you " 

The  rattling  of  a  latch-key  was  heard  in  the  outer 
door. 

"  Promise  !"  cried  Penelope. 

"Oh,  I  promise  !" 

"  Good-bye  !"  She  suddenly  flung  her  arms  round 
his  neck,  and,  pressing  her  cheek  tight  against  his, 
flashed  out  of  the  room  by  one  door  as  her  father 
entered  it  by  another. 

Corey  turned  to  him  in  a  daze.  "  I — I  called  to 

speak  with  you — about  a  matter But  it's  so 

late  now.  I  '11 — I  '11  see  you  to-morrow." 

"  No  time  like  the  present,"  said  Lapham,  with  a 
fierceness  that  did  not  seem  referable  to  Corey. 
He  had  his  hat  still  on,  and  he  glared  at  the  young 
man  out  of  his  blue  eyes  with  a  fire  that  something 
else  must  have  kindled  there. 

"  I  really  can't  now,"  said  Corey  weakly.  "  It 
will  do  quite  as  well  to-morrow.  Good  night,  sir." 

"  Good  night,"  answered  Lapham  abruptly,  follow 
ing  him  to  the  door,  and  shutting  it  after  him.  "  I 
think  the  devil  must  have  got  into  pretty  much 
everybody  to-night,"  he  muttered,  coming  back  to 
the  room,  where  he  put  down  his  hat.  Then  he 
went  to  the  kitchen-stairs  and  called  down,  "  Hello, 
Alice  !  I  want  something  to  eat ! 


XVII. 

"  WHAT  's  the  reason  the  girls  never  get  down  to 
breakfast  any  more  ?"  asked  Lapham,  when  he  met 
his  wife  at  the  table  in  the  morning.  He  had  been 
up  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  he  spoke  with  the  sever 
ity  of  a  hungry  man.  "  It  seems  to  me  they  don't 
amount  to  am/thing.  Here  I  am,  at  my  time  of  life, 
up  the  first  one  in  the  house.  I  ring  the  bell  for  the 
cook  at  quarter-past  six  every  morning,  and  the 
breakfast  is  on  the  table  at  half-past  seven  right  along, 
like  clockwork,  but  I  never  see  anybody  but  you  till 
I  go  to  the  office." 

"  Oh  yes,  you  do,  Si,"  said  his  wife  soothingly. 
"  The  girls  are  nearly  always  down.  But  they  're 
young,  and  it  tires  them  more  than  it  does  us  to  get 
up  early." 

"  They  can  rest  afterwards.  They  don't  do  any 
thing  after  they  are  up,"  grumbled  Lapham. 

"  Well,  that 's  your  fault,  ain't  it  ?  You  oughtn't 
to  have  made  so  much  money,  and  then  they  'd  have 
had  to  work."  She  laughed  at  Lapham's  Spartan 
mood,  and  went  on  to  excuse  the  young  people. 
"  Irene 's  been  up  two  nights  hand  running,  and 
Penelope  says  she  ain't  well.  What  makes  you  so 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  315 

cross  about  the  girls  ?  Been  doing  something  you  're 
ashamed  of  1 " 

"  I  '11  tell  }rou  when  I  Ve  been  doing  anything  to 
be  ashamed  of,"  growled  Lapham. 

"  Oh  no,  you  won't ! "  said  his  wife  jollily. 
"  You  '11  only  be  hard  on  the  rest  of  us.  Come 
now,  Si ;  what  is  it  1 " 

Lapham  frowned  into  his  coffee  with  sulky  dignity, 
and  said,  without  looking  up,  "  I  wonder  what  that 
fellow  wanted  here  last  night  ?" 

"What  fellow?" 

"  Corey.  I  found  him  here  when  I  came  home,  and 
he  said  he  wanted  to  see  me  ;  but  he  wouldn't  stop." 

"  Where  was  he  ?  " 

"  In  the  sitting-room." 

"  Was  Pen  there  ? " 

"/didn't  see  her." 

Mrs.  Lapham  paused,  with  her  hand  on  the  cream- 
jug.  "  Why,  what  in  the  land  did  he  want  ?  Did 
he  say  he  wanted  you  1 " 

"  That 's  what  he  said." 

"  And  then  he  wouldn't  stay  ? " 

"  No." 

"  Well,  then,  I  '11  tell  you  just  what  it  is,  Silas 
Lapham.  He  came  here  " — she  looked  about  the 
room  and  lowered  her  voice — "  to  see  you  about 
Irene,  and  then  he  hadn't  the  courage." 

"  I  guess  he  's  got  courage  enough  to  do  pretty 
much  what  he  wants  to,"  said  Lapham  glumly. 
"  All  I  know  is,  he  was  here.  You  better  ask  Pen 
about  it,  if  she  ever  gets  down." 


316  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  guess  I  shan't  wait  for  her,"  said  Mrs.  Lap- 
ham  ;  and,  as  her  husband  closed  the  front  door 
after  him,  she  opened  that  of  her  daughter's  room 
and  entered  abruptly. 

The  girl  sat  at  the  window,  fully  dressed,  and  as 
if  she  had  been  sitting  there  a  long  time.  Without 
rising,  she  turned  her  face  towards  her  mother.  It 
merely  showed  black  against  the  light,  and  revealed 
nothing  till  her  mother  came  close  to  her  with  suc 
cessive  questions.  "  Why,  how  long  have  you  been 
up,  Pen  ?  Why  don't  you  come  to  your  breakfast  1 
Did  you  see  Mr.  Corey  when  he  called  last  night  1 
Why,  what 's  the  matter  with  you  1  What  have 
you  been  crying  about  ? 

"  Have  I  been  crying  ? " 

"  Yes  !     Your  cheeks  are  all  wet !  " 

"  I  thought  they  were  on  fire.  Well,  1 11  tell 
you  what's  happened."  She  rose,  and  then 
fell  back  in  her  chair.  "  Lock  the  door  ! "  she 
ordered,  and  her  mother  mechanically  obeyed.  "  I 
don't  want  Irene  in  here.  There's  nothing  the 
matter.  Only,  Mr.  Corey  offered  himself  to  me  last 
night." 

Her  mother  remained  looking  at  her,  helpless,  not 
so  much  with  amaze,  perhaps,  as  dismay. 

"  Oh,  I  'm  not  a  ghost !  I  wish  I  was  !  You 
had  better  sit  down,  mother.  You  have  got  to 
know  all  about  it." 

Mrs.  Lapham  dropped  nervelessly  into  the  chair 
at  the  other  window,  and  while  the  girl  went  slowly 
but  briefly  on,  touching  only  the  vital  points  of  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  317 

story,  and  breaking  at  times  into  a  bitter  drollery, 
she  sat  as  if  without  the  power  to  speak  or  stir. 

"  Well,  that 's  all,  mother.  I  should  say  I  had 
dreamt  it,  if  I  had  slept  any  last  night ;  but  I  guess 
it  really  happened." 

The  mother  glanced  round  at  the  bed,  and  said,- 
glad  to  occupy  herself  delay ingly  with  the  minor 
care :   "  Why,  you  have  been  sitting  up  all  night  ! 
You  will  kill  yourself." 

"  I  don't  know  about  killing  myself,  but  I  've  been 
sitting  up  all  night,"  answered  the  girl.  Then,  see 
ing  that  her  mother  remained  blankly  silent  again, 
she  demanded,  "  Why  don't  you  blame  me,  mother  ] 
Why  don't  you  say  that  I  led  him  on,  and  tried  to 
get  him  away  from  her  1  Don't  you  believe  I  did  ?  " 

Her  mother  made  her  no  answer,  as  if  these 
ravings  of  self-accusal  needed  none.  "  Do  you 
think,"  she  asked  simply,  "  that  he  got  the  idea 
you  cared  for  him  1 " 

"  He  knew  it !  How  could  I  keep  it  from  him  ? 
I  said  I  didn't— at  first  ! " 

"  It  was  no  use,"  sighed  the  mother.  "  You 
might  as  well  said  you  did.  It  couldn't  help  Irene 
any,  if  you  didn't." 

"  I  always  tried  to  help  her  with  him,  even  when 
I » 

"  Yes,  I  know.  But  she  never  was  equal  to  him. 
I  saw  that  from  the  start ;  but  I  tried  to  blind 
myself  to  it.  And  when  he  kept  coming " 

"  You  never  thought  of  me  ! "  cried  the  girl,  with 
a  bitterness  that  reached  her  mother's  heart.  "  I 


318  THE  RISE  OF 

was  nobody  !  I  couldn't  feel !  No  one  could  care 
for  me  !  "  The  turmoil  of  despair,  of  triumph,  of 
remorse  and  resentment,  which  filled  her  soul,  tried 
to  express  itself  in  the  words. 

"  No,"  said  the  mother  humbly.  "  I  didn't  think 
*of  you.  Or  I  didn't  think  of  you  enough.  It  did 

come  across  me  sometimes  that  may  be But  it 

didn't  seem  as  if And  your  going  on  so  for 

Irene " 

"  You  let  me  go  on.  You  made  me  always  go 
and  talk  with  him  for  her,  and  you  didn't  think  I 
would  talk  to  him  for  myself.  Well,  I  didn't ! " 

"  I  'm  punished  for  it.  When  did  you — begin  to 
care  for  him  1 " 

"  How  do  I  know  1  What  difference  does  it 
make  ?  It's  all  over  now,  no  matter  when  it  began. 
He  won't  come  here  any  more,  unless  I  let  him." 
She  could  not  help  betraying  her  pride  in  this 
authority  of  hers,  but  she  went  on  anxiously  enough, 
"  What  will  you  say  to  Irene  ?  She 's  safe  as  far  as 
I  'm  concerned  ;  but  if  he  don't  care  for  her,  what 
will  you  do  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  do,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham. 
She  sat  in  an  apathy  from  which  she  apparently 
could  not  rouse  herself.  "I  don't  see  as  anything 
can  be  done." 

Penelope  laughed  in  a  pitying  derision. 

"  Well,  let  things  go  on  then.  But  they  won't  go 
on." 

"No,  they  won't  go  on,"  echoed  her  mother. 
"  She  's  pretty  enough,  and  she  's  capable  ;  and  your 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  319 

father's  got  the  money — I  don't  know  what  I'm 
saying  !  She  ain't  equal  to  him,  and  she  never  was. 
I  kept  feeling  it  all  the  time,  and  yet  I  kept  blinding 
myself." 

"  If  he  had  ever  cared  for  her,"  said  Penelope, 
"  it  wouldn't  have  mattered  whether  she  was  equal 
to  him  or  not  I'm  not  equal  to  him  either." 

Her  mother  went  on  :  "I  might  have  thought  it 

was  you  ;  but  I  had  got  set Well !  I  can  see  it 

all  clear  enough,  now  it  'a  too  late.  /  don't  know 
what  to  do." 

"  And  what  do  you  expect  me  to  do  V  demanded 
the  girl.  "  Do  you  want  me  to  go  to  Irene  and  tell 
her  that  I  've  got  him  away  from  her  1 " 

"  0  good  Lord  ! "  cried  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  What 
shall  I  do  ?  What  do  you  want  I  should  do,  Pen  1 " 

"  Nothing  for  me,"  said  Penelope.  "  I  've  had  it 
out  with  myself.  Now  do  the  best  you  can  for 
Irene." 

"  I  couldn't  say  you  'had  done  wrong,  if  you  was 
to  marry  him  to-day." 

"  Mother  ! " 

"  No,  I  couldn't.  I  couldn't  say  but  what  you 
had  been  good  and  faithful  all  through,  and  you  had 
a  perfect  right  to  do  it.  There  ain't  any  one  to 
blame.  He  's  behaved  like  a  gentleman,  and  I  can 
see  now  that  he  never  thought  of  her,  and  that  it 
was  you  all  the  while.  Well,  marry  him,  then  ! 
He 's  got  the  right,  and  so  have  you." 

"  What  about  Irene  ?  I  don't  want  you  to  talk 
about  me.  I  can  take  care  of  myself." 


320  THE  RISE  OF 

"She's  nothing  but  a  child.  It's  only  a  fancy 
with  her.  She  '11  get  over  it.  She  hain't  really  got 
her  heart  set  on  him." 

"  She 's  got  her  heart  set  on  him,  mother.  She 's 
got  her  whole  life  set  on  him.  You  know  that." 

"  Yes,  that 's  so,"  said  the  mother,  as  promptly 
as  if  she  had  been  arguing  to  that  rather  than  the 
contrary  effect. 

"If  I  could  give  him  to  her,  I  would.  But  he 
isn't  mine  to  give."  She  added  in  a  burst  of  despair, 
"  He  isn't  mine  to  keep  !" 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham,  "  she  has  got  to  bear 
it.  I  don't  know  what 's  to  come  of  it  all.  But  she 's 
got  to  bear  her  share  of  it,"  She  rose  and  went 
toward  the  door. 

Penelope  ran  after  her  in  a  sort  of  terror. 
"  You  're  not  going  to  tell  Irene  7 "  she  gasped, 
seizing  her  mother  by  either  shoulder. 

"Yes,  I  am,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "If  she's  a 
woman  grown,  she  can  bear 'a  woman's  burden." 

"  I  can't  let  you  tell  Irene,"  said  the  girl,  letting 
fall  her  face  on  her  mother's  neck  "Not  Irene," 
she  moaned.  "  I  'm  afraid  to  let  you.  How  can  I 
ever  look  at  her  again  1 " 

"  Why,  you  haven't  done  anything,  Pen,"  said  her 
mother  soothingly. 

"  I  wanted  to  !  Yes,  I  must  have  done  something. 
How  could  I  help  it  ?  I  did  care  for  him  from  the 
first,  and  I  must  have  tried  to  make  him  like  me. 
Do  you  think  I  did  ?  No,  no  !  You  mustn't  tell 
Irene  !  Not — not — yet !  Mother  !  Yes  !  I  did 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  321 

try  to  get  him  from  her ! "  she  cried,  lifting  her 
head,  and  suddenly  looking  her  mother  in  the  face 
with  those  large  dim  eyes  of  hers.  "  What  do  you 
think  1  Even  last  night  !  It  was  the  first  time  I 
ever  had  him  all  to  myself,  for  myself,  and  I  know 
now  that  I  tried  to  make  him  think  that  I  was  pretty 
and — funny.  And  I  didn't  try  to  make  him  think 
of  her.  I  knew  that  I  pleased  him,  and  I  tried  to 
please  him  more.  Perhaps  I  could  have  kept  him 
from  saying  that  he  cared  for  me  ;  but  when  I  saw 
he  did — I  must  have  seen  it — I  couldn't.  I  had 
never  had  him  to  myself,  and  for  myself  before.  I 
needn't  have  seen  him  at  all,  but  I  wanted  to  see 
him  ;  and  when  I  was  sitting  there  alone  with  him, 
how  do  I  know  what  I  did  to  let  him  feel  that  I 
cared  for  him  ?  Now,  will  you  tell  Irene  1  I  never 
thought  he  did  care  for  me,  and  never  expected  him 
to.  But  I  liked  him.  Yes— I  did  like  him  !  Tell 
her  that !  Or  else  /  will." 

"  If  it  was  to  tell  her  he  was  dead,"  began  Mrs. 
Lapham  absently. 

"  How  easy  it  would  be  ! "  cried  the  girl  in  self- 
mockery.  "  But  he  's  worse  than  dead  to  her  ;  and 
so  am  I.  I've  turned  it  over  a  million  ways, 
mother ;  I  've  looked  at  it  in  every  light  you  can 
put  it  in,  and  I  can't  make  anything  but  misery  out 
of  it.  You  can  see  the  misery  at  the  first  glance, 
and  you  can't  see  more  or  less  if  you  spend  your  life 
looking  at  it."  She  laughed  again,  as  if  the  hope 
lessness  of  the  thing  amused  her.  Then  she  flew  to 
the  extreme  of  self-assertion.  "  Well,  I  have  a  right 
x 


322  THE  RISE  OF 

to  him,  and  he  has  a  right  to  me.  If  he 's  never 
done  anything  to  make  her  think  he  cared  for  her, 
— and  I  know  he  hasn't ;  it 's  all  been  our  doing, — 
then  he 's  free  and  I  'm  free.  We  can't  make  her 

happy  whatever  we  do ;  and  why  shouldn't  I 

No,  that  won't  do  !  I  reached  that  point  before  ! " 
She  broke  again  into  her  desperate  laugh.  "  You 
may  try  now,  mother  !  " 

"  I  'd  best  speak  to  your  father  first " 

Penelope  smiled  a  little  more  forlornly  than  she 
had  laughed. 

"  Well,  yes  ;  the  Colonel  will  have  to  know.  It 
isn't  a  trouble  that  I  can  keep  to  myself  exactly.  It 
seems  to  belong  to  too  many  other  people." 

Her  mother  took  a  crazy  encouragement  from  her 
return  to  her  old  way  of  saying  things.  "  Perhaps 
he  can  think  of  something." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  doubt  but  the  Colonel  will  know 
just  what  to  do  !  " 

"  You  mustn't  be  too  down-hearted  about  it.  It 
— it'll  all  come  right " 

"You  tell  Irene  that,  mother." 

Mrs.  Lapham  had  put  her  hand  on  the  door-key  ; 
she  dropped  it,  and  looked  at  the  girl  with  a  sort  of 
beseeching  appeal  for  the  comfort  she  could  not 
imagine  herself.  "Don't  look  at  me,  mother,"  said 
Penelope,  shaking  her  head.  "  You  know  that  if 
Irene  were  to  die  without  knowing  it,  it  wouldn't 
come  right  for  me." 

"  Pen  ! " 

"  I  've  read  of  cases  where  a  girl  gives  up  the  man 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  323 

that  loves  her  so  as  to  make  some  other  girl  happy 
that  the  man  doesn't  love.  That  might  be  done." 

"  Your  father  would  think  you  were  a  fool,"  said 
Mrs.  Lapham,  finding  a  sort  of  refuge  in  her  strong 
disgust  for  the  pseudo  heroism.  "  No  !  If  there 's 
to  be  any  giving  up,  let  it  be  by  the  one  that  shan't 
make  anybody  but  herself  suffer.  There 's  trouble 
and  sorrow  enough  in  the  world,  without  making  it 
on  purpose !  " 

She  unlocked  the  door,  but  Penelope  slipped 
round  and  set  herself  against  it.  "  Irene  shall  not 
give  up  ! " 

"  I  will  see  your  father  about  it,"  said  the  mother. 
"  Let  me  out  now " 

"  Don't  let  Irene  come  here  !  " 

"  No.  I  will  tell  her  that  you  haven't  slept.  Go 
to  bed  now,  and  try  to  get  some  rest.  She  isn't  up 
herself  yet.  You  must  have  some  breakfast." 

"  No ;  let  me  sleep  if  I  can.  I  can  get  something 
vhen  I  wake  up.  I  '11  come  down  if  I  can't  sleep. 
Life  has  got  to  go  on.  It  does  when  there  's  a  death 
in  the  house,  and  this  is  only  a  little  worse." 

"  Don't  you  talk  nonsense  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Lapham, 
with  angry  authority. 

"  Well,  a  little  better,  then,"  said  Penelope,  with 
meek  concession. 

Mrs.  Lapham  attempted  to  say  something,  and 
could  not.  She  went  out  and  opened  Irene's  door. 
The  girl  lifted  her  head  drowsily  from  her  pillow 
"  Don't  disturb  your  sister  when  you  get  up,  Irene. 
She  hasn't  slept  well " 


324  THE  RISE  OF 

"  Please  don't  talk  !  I  'm  almost  dead  with  sleep!" 
returned  Irene.  "  Do  go,  mamma  !  I  shan't  disturb 
her."  She  turned  her  face  down  in  the  pillow,  and 
pulled  the  covering  up  over  her  ears. 

The  mother  slowly  closed  the  door  and  went 
downstairs,  feeling  bewildered  and  baffled  almost 
beyond  the  power  to  move.  The  time  had  been 
when  she  would  have  tried  to  find  out  why  this 
judgment  had  been  sent  upon  her.  But  now  she 
could  not  feel  that  the  innocent  suffering  of  others 
was  inflicted  for  her  fault ;  she  shrank  instinctively 
from  that  cruel  and  egotistic  misinterpretation  of 
the  mystery  of  pain  and  loss.  She  saw  her  two 
children,  equally  if  differently  dear  to  her,  destined 
to  trouble  that  nothing  could  avert,  and  she  could 
not  blame  either  of  them ;  she  could  not  blame 
the  means  of  this  misery  to  them ;  he  was  as  in 
nocent  as  they,  and  though  her  heart  was  sore 
against  him  in  this  first  moment,  she  could  still  be 
just  to  him  in  it.  She  was  a  woman  who  had  been 
used  to  seek  the  light  by  striving  ;  she  had  hitherto 
literally  worked  to  it  But  it  is  the  curse  of  pro 
sperity  that  it  takes  work  away  from  us,  and  shuts 
that  door  to  hope  and  health  of  spirit.  In  this 
house,  where  everything  had  come  to  be  done  for 
her,  she  had  no  tasks  to  interpose  between  her  and 
her  despair.  She  sat  down  in  her  own  room  and  let 
her  hands  fall  in  her  lap, — the  hands  that  had  once 
been  so  helpful  and  busy, — and  tried  to  think  it  all 
out.  She  had  never  heard  of  the  fate  that  was  once 
supposed  to  appoint  the  sorrows  of  men  irrespective 
of  their  blamelessness  or  blame,  before  the  time 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  325 

when  it  came  to  be  believed  that  sorrows  were 
penalties;  but  in  her  simple  way  she  recognised 
something  like  that  mythic  power  when  she  rose 
from  her  struggle  with  the  problem,  and  said  aloud 
to  herself,  "  Well,  the  witch  is  in  it."  Turn  which 
way  she  would,  she  saw  no  escape  from  the  misery 
to  come — the  misery  which  had  come  already  to 
Penelope  and  herself,  and  that  must  come  to  Irene 
and  her  father.  She  started  when  she  definitely 
thought  of  her  husband,  and  thought  with  what 
violence  it  would  work  in  every  fibre  of  his  rude 
strength.  She  feared  that,  and  she  feared  some 
thing  worse — the  effect  which  his  pride  and  am 
bition  might  seek  to  give  it ;  and  it  was  with  terror 
of  this,  as  well  as  the  natural  trust  with  which  a 
woman  must  turn  to  her  husband  in  any  anxiety  at 
last,  that  she  felt  she  could  not  wait  for  evening  to 
take  counsel  with  him.  When  she  considered  how 
wrongly  he  might  take  it  all,  it  seemed  as  if  it 
were  already  known  to  him,  and  she  was  impatient 
to  prevent  his  error. 

She  sent  out  for  a  messenger,  whom  she  despatched 
with  a  note  to  his  place  of  business  :  "  Silas,  I  should 
like  to  ride  with  you  this  afternoon.  Can't  you  come 
home  early  ?  Persis."  And  she  was  at  dinner  with 
Irene,  evading  her  questions  about  Penelope,  when 
answer  came  that  he  would  be  at  the  house  with  the 
buggy  at  half-past  two.  It  is  easy  to  put  off  a  girl 
who  has  but  one  thing  in  her  head  ;  but  though 
Mrs.  Lapham  could  escape  without  telling  anything 
of  Penelope,  she  could  not  escape  seeing  how  wholly 
Irene  was  engrossed  with  hopes  now  turned  so  vain 


326  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

and  impossible.  She  was  still  talking  of  that  dinner, 
of  nothing  but  that  dinner,  and  begging  for  flattery 
of  herself  and  praise  of  him,  which  her  mother  had 
till  now  been  so  ready  to  give. 

"  Seems  to  me  you  don't  take  very  much  interest, 
mamma !"  she  said, laughing  and  blushing  atone  point. 

"  Yes, — yes,  I  do,"  protested  Mrs.  Lapham,  and 
then  the  girl  prattled  on. 

"  I  guess  I  shall  get  one  of  those  pins  that  Xanny 
Corey  had  in  her  hair.  I  think  it  would  become 
me,  don't  you  ? " 

"  Yes ;  but  Irene — I  don't  like  to  have  you  go  on 
so,  till — unless  he 's  said  something  to  show —  You 

oughtn't  to  give  yourself  up  to  thinking "  But 

at  this  the  girl  turned  so  white,  and  looked  such  re 
proach  at  her,  that  she  added  frantically :  "  Yes, 
get  the  pin.  It  is  just  the  thing  for  you  !  But 
don't  disturb  Penelope.  Let  her  alone  till  I  get 
back.  I'm  going  out  to  ride  with  your  father. 
He  '11  be  here  in  half  an  hour.  Are  you  through  ? 
Ring,  then.  Get  yourself  that  fan  you  saw  the 
other  day.  Your  father  won't  say  anything ;  he  likes 
to  have  you  look  well.  I  could  see  his  eyes  on  you 
half  the  time  the  other  night." 

"  I  should  have  liked  to  have  Pen  go  with  me," 
said  Irene,  restored  to  her  normal  state  of  innocent 
selfishness  by  these  flatteries.  "  Don't  you  suppose 
she  '11  be  up  in  time  ?  What 's  the  matter  with  her 
that  she  didn't  sleep  1 " 

"  I  don't  know.     Better  let  her  alone." 

"  Well,"  submitted  Irene. 


XVIII. 

MRS.  LAPHAM  went  away  to  put  on  her  bonnet 
and  cloak,  and  she  was  waiting  at  the  window  when 
her  husband  drove  up.  She  opened  the  door  and 
ran  down  the  steps.  "  Don't  get  out ;  I  can  help 
myself  in,"  and  she  clambered  to  his  side,  while  he 
kept  the  fidgeting  mare  still  with  voice  and  touch. 

"Where  do  you  want  I  should  go?"  he  asked, 
turning  the  buggy. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  care.  Out  Brookline  way,  I  guess. 
I  wish  you  hadn't  brought  this  fool  of  a  horse,"  she 
gave  way  petulantly.  "  I  wanted  to  have  a  talk." 

"  When  I  can't  drive  this  mare  and  talk  too,  I  '11 
sell  out  altogether,"  said  Lapham.  "  She  '11  be 
quiet  enough  when  she  's  had  her  spin." 

"  Well,"  said  his  wife ;  and  while  they  were 
making  their  way  across  the  city  to  the  Milldam  she 
answered  certain  questions  he  asked  about  some 
points  in  the  new  house. 

"  I  should  have  liked  to  have  you  stop  there," 
he  began ;  but  she  answered  so  quickly,  "  Not  to 
day,"  that  he  gave  it  up  and  turned  his  horse's  head 
westward  when  they  struck  Beacon  Street. 

327 


328  THE  RISE  OF 

He  let  the  mare  out,  and  he  did  not  pull  her  in 
till  he  left  the  Brighton  road  and  struck  off  under 
the  low  boughs  that  met  above  one  of  the  quiet 
streets  of  Brookline,  where  the  stone  cottages,  with 
here  and  there  a  patch  of  determined  ivy  on  their 
northern  walls,  did  what  they  could  to  look  English 
amid  the  glare  of  the  autumnal  foliage.  The  smooth 
earthen  track  under  the  mare's  hoofs  was  scattered 
with  flakes  of  the  red  and  yellow  gold  that  made 
the  air  luminous  around  them,  and  the  perspective 
was  gay  with  innumerable  tints  and  tones. 

"  Pretty  sightly,"  said  Lapham,  with  a  long  sign, 
letting  the  reins  lie  loose  in  his  vigilant  hand,  to 
which  he  seemed  to  relegate  the  whole  charge  of 
the  mare.  "  I  want  to  talk  with  you  about  Rogers, 
Persis.  He 's  been  getting  in  deeper  and  deeper 
with  me ;  and  last  night  he  pestered  me  half  to 
death  to  go  in  with  him  in  one  of  his  schemes.  I 
ain't  going  to  blame  anybody,  but  I  hain't  got  very 
much  confidence  in  Rogers.  And  I  told  him  so  last 
night." 

"  Oh,  don't  talk  to  me  about  Rogers ! "  his  wife 
broke  in.  "  There 's  something  a  good  deal  more 
important  than  Rogers  in  the  world,  and  more  im 
portant  than  your  business.  It  seems  as  if  you 
couldn't  think  of  anything  else — that  and  the  .new 
house.  Did  you  suppose  I  wanted  to  ride  so  as  to 
talk  Rogers  with  you  1 "  she  demanded,  yielding  to 
the  necessity  a  wife  feels  of  making  her  husband 
pay  for  her  suffering,  even  if  he  has  not  inflicted  it. 
"  I  declare " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  329 

"Well,  hold  on,  now!"  said  Lapham.  "What 
do  you  want  to  talk  about?  I 'm  listening." 

His  wife  began,  "  Why,  it 's  just  this,  Silas 
Lapham ! "  and  then  she  broke  off  to  say,  "  Well, 
you  may  wait,  now — starting  me  wrong,  when  it's 
hard  enough  anyway." 

Lapham  silently  turned  his  whip  over  and  over  in 
his  hand  and  waited. 

"  Did  you  suppose,"  she  asked  at  last,  "  that  that 
young  Corey  had  been  coming  to  see  Irene  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  supposed,"  replied  Lapham 
sullenly.  "  You  always  said  so."  He  looked  sharply 
at  her  under  his  lowering  brows. 

"  Well,  he  hasn't,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham ;  and  she 
replied  to  the  frown  that  blackened  on  her  husband's 
face.  "  And  I  can  tell  you  what,  if  you  take  it  in 
that  way  I  shan't  speak  another  word." 

"  Who 's  takin'  it  what  way  ? "  retorted  Lapham 
savagely.  "  What  are  you  drivin'  at  ] " 

"  I  want  you  should  promise  that  you  '11  hear  me 
out  quietly." 

"  I  '11  hear  you  out  if  you  '11  give  me  a  chance.  I 
haven't  said  a  word  yet." 

"  Well,  I  'm  not  going  to  have  you  flying  into 
forty  furies,  and  looking  like  a  perfect  thunder 
cloud  at  the  very  start.  I've  had  to  bear  it,  and 
you've  got  to  bear  it  too." 

"  Well,  let  me  have  a  chance  at  it,  then." 

"  It 's  nothing  to  blame  anybody  about,  as  I  can 
see,  and  the  only  question  is,  what 's  the  best  thing 
to  do  about  it.  There 's  only  one  thing  we  can  do  ; 


330  THE  RISE  OP 

for  if  he  don't  care  for  the  child,  nobody  wants  to 
make  him.  If  he  hasn't  been  coming  to  see  her,  he 
hasn't,  and  that 's  all  there  is  to  it." 

"  No,  it  ain't ! "  exclaimed  Lapham. 

"  There  !"  protested  his  wife. 

"  If  he  hasn't  been  coming  to  see  her,  what  has  he 
been  coming  for  ?" 

"  He 's  been  coming  to  see  Pen  ! "  cried  the  wife. 
"  Now  are  you  satisfied  1"  Her  tone  implied  that  he 
had  brought  it  all  upon  them ;  but  at  the  sight  of 
the  swift  passions  working  in  his  face  to  a  perfect 
comprehension  of  the  whole  trouble,  she  fell  to 
trembling,  and  her  broken  voice  lost  all  the  spurious 
indignation  she  had  put  into  it.  "  0  Silas  !  what 
are  we  going  to  do  about  it  1  I  'm  afraid  it  '11  kill 
Irene." 

Lapham  pulled  off  the  loose  driving-glove  from  his 
right  hand  with  the  fingers  of  his  left,  in  which  the 
reins  lay.  He  passed  it  over  his  forehead,  and  then 
flicked  from  it  the  moisture  it  had  gathered  there. 
He  caught  his  breath  once  or  twice,  like  a  man  who 
meditates  a  struggle  with  superior  force  and  then 
remains  passive  in  its  grasp. 

His  wife  felt  the  need  of  comforting  him,  as  she 
had  felt  the  need  of  afflicting  him.  "  I  don't  say  but 
what  it  can  be  made  to  come  out  all  right  in  the  end. 
All  I  say  is,  I  don't  see  my  way  clear  yet." 

"  What  makes  you  think  he  likes  Pen  ?"  he  asked 
quietly. 

"  He  told  her  so  last  night,  and  she  told  me  this 
morning.  Was  he  at  the  office  to-day  ?" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  331 

"  Yes,  he  was  there.  I  haven't  been  there  much 
myself.  He  didn't  say  anything  to  me.  Does  Irene 
know  ?" 

"  No  ;  I  left  her  getting  ready  to  go  out  shopping. 
She  wants  to  get  a  pin  like  the  one  Nanny  Corey 
had  on." 

"  0  my  Lord  !"  groaned  Lapham. 

"  It 's  been  Pen  from  the  start,  I  guess,  or  almost 
from  the  start.  I  don't  say  but  what  he  was 
attracted  some  by  Irene  at  the  very  first ;  but  I 
guess  it 's  been  Pen  ever  since  he  saw  her ;  and 
we  Ve  taken  up  with  a  notion,  and  blinded  ourselves 
with  it.  Time  and  again  I've  had  my  doubts 
whether  he  cared  for  Irene  any ;  but  I  declare  to 
goodness,  when  he  kept  coming,  I  never  hardly 
thought  of  Pen,  and  I  couldn't  help  believing  at 
last  he  did  care  for  Irene.  Did  it  ever  strike  you 
he  might  be  after  Pen  1 " 

"  No.  I  took  what  you  said.  I  supposed  you 
knew." 

"  Do  you  blame  me,  Silas  ?"  she  asked  timidly. 

"No.  What's  the  use  of  blaming?  We  don't 
either  of  us  want  anything  but  the  children's  good. 
What 's  it  all  of  it  for,  if  it  ain't  for  that  ?  That 's 
what  we  Ve  both  slaved  for  all  our  lives." 

"Yes,  I  know.  Plenty  of  people  lose  their 
children,"  she'  suggested. 

' '  Yes,  but  that  don't  comfort  me  any.  I  never 
was  one  to  feel  good  because  another  man  felt  bad. 
How  would  you  have  liked  it  if  some  one  had  taken 
comfort  because  his  boy  lived  when  ours  died  1 


332  THE  RISE  OF 

No,  I  can't  do  it.  And  this  is  worse  than  death, 
someways.  That  comes  and  it  goes  ;  but  this  looks 
as  if  it  was  one  of  those  things  that  had  come  to 
stay.  The  way  I  look  at  it,  there  ain't  any  hope  for 
anybody.  Suppose  we  don't  want  Pen  to  have  him  ; 
will  that  help  Irene  any,  if  he  don't  want  her  ] 
Suppose  we  don't  want  to  let  him  have  either ;  does 
that  help  either  ! " 

"  You  talk,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Lapham,  "  as  if  our 
say  was  going  to  settle  it.  Do  you  suppose  that 
Penelope  Lapham  is  a  girl  to  take  up  witli  a  fellow 
that  her  sister  is  in  love  with,  and  that  she  always 
thought  was  in  love  with  her  sister,  and  go  off  and 
be  happy  with  him  ]  Don't  you  believe  but  what  it 
would  come  back  to  her,  as  long  as  she  breathed  the 
breath  of  life,  how  she  'd  teased  her  about  him,  as 
I  Ve  heard  Pen  tease  Irene,  and  helped  to  make  her 
think  he  was  in  love  with  her,  by  showing  that  she 
thought  so  herself  1  It 's  ridiculous  ! " 

Lapham  seemed  quite  beaten  down  by  this  argu 
ment.  His  huge  head  hung  forward  over  his  breast ; 
the  reins  lay  loose  in  his  moveless  hand ;  the  mare 
took  her  own  way.  At  last  he  lifted  his  face  and 
shut  his  heavy  jaws. 

"  Well  ?"  quavered  his  wife. 

"  Well,"  he  answered,  "  if  he  wants  her,  and  she 
wants  him,  I  don't  see  what  that 's  got  to  do  with  it." 
He  looked  straight  forward,  and  not  at  his  wife. 

She  laid  her  hands  on  the  reins.  "  Now,  you  stop 
right  here,  Silas  Lapham  !  If  I  thought  that — if  I 
really  believed  you  could  be  willing  to  break  that 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  333 

poor  child's  heart,  and  let  Pen  disgrace  herself  by 
marrying  a  man  that  had  as  good  as  killed  her  sister, 
just  because  you  wanted  Bromfield  Corey's  son  for 
a  son-in-law " 

Lapham  turned  his  face  now,  and  gave  her  a  look. 
"  You  had  better  not  believe  that,  Persis  !  Get 
up  ! "  he  called  to  the  mare,  without  glancing  at  her, 
and  she  sprang  forward.  "  I  see  you  Ve  got  past 
being  any  use  to  yourself  on  this  subject." 

"  Hello  !"  shouted  a  voice  in  front  of  him.  "  Where 
the  devil  you  goin'  to  1 " 

"  Do  you  want  to  Ml  somebody  ? "  shrieked  his 
wife. 

There  was  a  light  crash,  and  the  mare  recoiled  her 
length,  and  separated  their  wheels  from  those  of  the 
open  buggy  in  front  which  Lapham  had  driven  into. 
He  made  his  excuses  to  the  occupant;  and  the 
accident  relieved  the  tension  of  their  feelings,  and 
left  them  far  from  the  point  of  mutual  injury  which 
they  had  reached  in  their  common  trouble  and  their 
unselfish  will  for  their  children's  good. 

It  was  Lapham  who  resumed  the  talk.  "  I  'm 
afraid  we  can't  either  of  us  see  this  thing  in  the 
right  light.  We  're  too  near  to  it.  I  wish  to  the 
Lord  there  was  somebody  to  talk  to  about  it." 

"Yes,"  said  his  wife  ;  "  but  there  ain't  anybody." 

"Well,  I  dunno,"  suggested  Lapham,  after  a 
moment;  "why  not  talk  to  the  minister  of  your 
church  ?  May  be  he  could  see  some  way  out  of  it." 

Mrs.  Lapham  shook  her  head  hopelessly.  "  It 
wouldn't  do.  I've  never  taken  up  my  connection 


334  THE  RISE  OF 

with  the  church,  and  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  'd  got  any 
claim  on  him." 

"  If  he 's  anything  of  a  man,  or  anything  of  a 
preacher,  you  have  got  a  claim  on  him,"  urged  Lap- 
ham  ;  and  he  spoiled  his  argument  by  adding,  "  I  've 
contributed  enough  money  to  his  church." 

"  Oh,  that 's  nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  I 
ain't  well  enough  acquainted  with  Dr.  Langworthy, 
or  else  I  'm  too  well.  No  ;  if  I  was  to  ask  any  one, 
I  should  want  to  ask  a  total  stranger.  But  what 's 
the  use,  Si  ?  Nobody  could  make  us  see  it  any  dif 
ferent  from  what  it  is,  and  I  don't  know  as  I  should 
want  they  should." 

It  blotted  out  the  tender  beauty  of  the  day,  and 
weighed  down  their  hearts  ever  more  heavily  within 
them.  They  ceased  to  talk  of  it  a  hundred  times, 
and  still  came  back  to  it.  They  drove  on  and  on. 
It  began  to  be  late.  "  I  guess  we  better  go  back,  Si," 
said  his  wife ;  and  as  he  turned  without  speaking, 
she  pulled  her  veil  down  and  began  to  cry  softly 
behind  it,  with  low  little  broken  sobs. 

Lapham  started  the  mare  up  and  drove  swiftly 
homeward.  At  last  his  wife  stopped  crying  and 
began  trying  to  find  her  pocket.  "  Here,  take  mine, 
Persis,"  he  said  kindly,  offering  her  his  handkerchief, 
and  she  took  it  and  dried  her  eyes  with  it.  "  There 
was  one  of  those  fellows  there  the  other  night,"  he 
spoke  again,  when  his  wife  leaned  back  against  the 
cushions  in  peaceful  despair,  "  that  I  liked  the  looks 
of  about  as  well  as  any  man  I  ever  saw.  I  guess  he 
was  a  pretty  good  man.  It  was  that  Mr.  Sewell." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  335 

He  looked  at  his  wife,  but  she  did  not  say  anything. 
"  Persis,"  he  resumed,  "  I  can't  bear  to  go  back  with 
nothing  settled  in  our  minds.  I  can't  bear  to  let 
you." 

"We  must,  Si,"  returned  his  wife,  with  gentle 
gratitude.  Lapham  groaned.  "  Where  does  he 
live  1 "  she  asked. 

"  On  Bolingbroke  Street.  He  gave  me  his 
number." 

"  Well,  it  wouldn't  do  any  good.  What  could  he 
say  to  us  1 " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  as  he  could  say  anything,"  said 
Lapham  hopelessly  ;  and  neither  of  them  said'  any 
thing  more  till  they  crossed  the  Milldam  and  found 
themselves  between  the  rows  of  city  houses." 

"Don't  drive  past  the  new  house,  Si,"  pleaded  his 
wife.  "  I  couldn't  bear  to  see  it.  Drive — drive  up 
Bolingbroke  Street.  We  might  as  well  see  where 
he  does  live." 

"  Well,"  said  Lapham.  He  drove  along  slowly. 
"  That 's  the  place,"  he  said  finally,  stopping  the 
mare  and  pointing  with  his  whip. 

"  It  wouldn't  do  any  good,"  said  his  wife,  in  a 
tone  which  he  understood  as  well  as  he  understood 
her  words.  He  turned  the  mare  up  to  the  curb 
stone. 

"  You  take  the  reins  a  minute,"  he  said,  handing 
them  to  his  wife. 

He  got  down  and  rang  the  bell,  and  waited  till 
the  door  opened  ;  then  he  came  back  and  lifted  his 
wife  out.  "  He 's  in,"  he  said. 


336  THE  RISE  OF 

He  got  the  hitch  ing- weight  from  under  the  buggy- 
seat  and  made  it  fast  to  the  mare's  bit. 

"Do  you  think  she'll  stand  with  that?"  asked 
Mrs.  Lapham. 

"  I  guess  so.     If  she  don't,  no  matter." 

"  Ain't  you  afraid  she  '11  take  cold,"  she  persisted, 
trying  to  make  delay. 

"  Let  her  ! "  said  Lapham.  He  took  his  wife's 
trembling  hand  under  his  arm,  and  drew  her  to  the 
door. 

"  He  '11  think  we  're  crazy,"  she  murmured  in  her 
broken  pride. 

"  Well,  we  are"  said  Lapham.  "  Tell  him  we  'd 
like  to  see  him  alone  a  while,"  he  said  to  the  girl 
who  was  holding  the  door  ajar  for  him,  and  she 
showed  him  into  the  reception-room,  which  had 
been  the  Protestant  confessional  for  many  burdened 
souls  before  their  time,  coming,  as  they  did,  with  the 
belief  that  they  were  bowed  down  with  the  only 
misery  like  theirs  in  the  universe  ;  for  each  one  of 
us  must  suffer  long  to  himself  before  he  can  learn 
that  he  is  but  one  in  a  great  community  of  wretched 
ness  which  has  been  pitilessly  repeating  itself  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world. 

They  were  as  loath  to  touch  their  trouble  when 
the  minister  came  in  as  if  it  were  their  disgrace  ; 
but  Lapham  did  so  at  last,  and,  with  a  simple 
dignity  which  he  had  wanted  in  his  bungling  and 
apologetic  approaches,  he  laid  the  affair  clearly  be 
fore  the  minister's  compassionate  and  reverent  eye.- 
He  spared  Corey's  name,  but  he  did  not  pretend  that 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  337 

it  was  not  himself  and  his  wife  and  their  daughters 
who  were  concerned. 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  Ve  got  any  right  to  trouble 
you  with  this  thing,"  he  said,  in  the  moment  while 
Sewell  sat  pondering  the  case,  "  and  I  don't  know  as 
I  Ve  got  any  warrant  for  doing  it.  But,  as  I  told 
my  wife  here,  there  was  something  about  you — I 
don't  know  whether  it  was  anything  you  said 
exactly — that  made  me  feel  as  if  you  could  help  us. 
I  guess  I  didn't  say  so  much  as  that  to  her;  but 
that 's  the  way  I  felt.  And  here  we  are.  And  if 
it  ain't  all  right " 

"  Surely,"  said  Sewell,  "  it 's  all  right.  I  thank 
you  for  coming — for  trusting  your  trouble  to  ine. 
A  time  comes  to  every  one  of  us  when  we  can't  help 
ourselves,  and  then  we  must  get  others  to  help  us. 
If  people  turn  to  me  at  such  a  time,  I  feel  sure  that 
I  was  put  into  the  world  for  something — if  nothing 
more  than  to  give  my  pity,  my  sympathy." 

The  brotherly  words,  so  plain,  so  sincere,  had  a 
welcome  in  them  that  these  poor  outcasts  of  sorrow 
could  not  doubt. 

"Yes,"  said  Lapham  huskily,  and  his  wife  began 
to  wipe  the  tears  again  under  her  veil. 

Sewell  remained  silent,  and  they  waited  till  he 
should  speak.  "  We  can  be  of  use  to  one  another 
here,  because  we  can  always  be  wiser  for  some  one 
else  than  we  can  for  ourselves.  We  can  see 
another's  sins  and  errors  in  a  more  merciful  light 
. — and  that  is  always  a  fairer  light — than  we  can 
our  own ;  and  we  can  look  more  sanely  at  others' 

Y 


338  THE  RISE  OF 

afflictions."  He  had  addressed  these  words  to 
Lapham ;  now  he  turned  to  his  wife.  "  If  some 
one  had  come  to  you,  Mrs.  Lapham,  in  just  this 
perplexity,  what  would  you  have  thought  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  understand  you,"  faltered 
Mrs.  Lapham. 

Sewell  repeated  his  words,  and  added,  "  I  mean, 
what  do  you  think  some  one  else  ought  to  do  in 
your  place  1  " 

"  Was  there  ever  any  poor  creatures  in  such  a 
strait  before  1 "  she  asked,  with  pathetic  incredulity. 

"  There 's  no  new  trouble  under  the  sun,"  said 
the  minister. 

"  Oh,  if  it  Avas  any  one  else,  I  should  say — I 
should  say —  Why,  of  course  !  I  should  say  that 
their  duty  was  to  let "  She  paused. 

"  One  suffer  instead  of  three,  if  none  is  to  blame  ]" 
suggested  Sewell.  "  That 's  sense,  and  that 's  justice. 
It 's  the  economy  of  pain  which  naturally  suggests 
itself,  and  which  would  insist  upon  itself,  if  we  were 
not  all  perverted  by  traditions  which  are  the  figment 
of  the  shallowest  sentimentality.  Tell  me,  Mrs. 
Lapham,  didn't  this  come  into  your  mind  when  you 
first  learned  how  matters  stood  1 " 

"Why,  yes,  it  flashed  across  me.  But  I  didn't 
think  it  could  be  right." 

"  And  how  was  it  with  you,  Mr.  Lapham  ? " 

"  Why,  'that 's  \vhat  /  thought,  of  course.  But  I 
didn't  see  my  way " 

"  No,"  cried  the  minister,  "  we  are  all  blinded,  we. 
are  all  weakened  by  "a  false  ideal  of  self-sacrifice.  It 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  339 

wraps  us  round  with  its  meshes,  and  we  can't  fight 
our  way  out  of  it.  Mrs.  Lapham,  what  made  you 
feel  that  it  might  be  better  for  three  to  suffer  than 
one  f ' 

"Why,  she  did  herself.  I  know  she  would  die 
sooner  than  take  him  away  from  her." 

"  I  supposed  so  ! "  cried  the  minister  bitterly. 
"  And  yet  she  is  a  sensible  girl,  your  daughter  1" 

"  She  has  more  common-sense " 

"  Of  course  !  But  in  such  a  case  we  somehow 
think  it  must  be  wrong  to  use  our  common-sense. 
I  don't  know  where  this  false  ideal  comes  from, 
unless  it  comes  from  the  novels  that  befool  and 
debauch  almost  every  intelligence  in  some  degree. 
It  certainly  doesn't  come  from  Christianity,  which 
instantly  repudiates  it  when  confronted  with  it. 
Your  daughter  believes,  in  spite  of  her  common- 
sense,  that  she  ought  to  make  herself  and  the  man 
who  loves  her  unhappy,  in  order  to  assure  the  life 
long  wretchedness  of  her  sister,  whom  he  doesn't 
love,  simply  because  her  sister  saw  him  and  fancied 
him  first !  And  I  'm  sorry  to  say  that  ninety-nine 
young  people  out  of  a  hundred — oh,  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  out  of  a  thousand  ! — would  consider 
that  noble  and  beautiful  and  heroic ;  whereas  you 
know  at  the  bottom  of  your  hearts  that  it  would  be 
foolish  and  cruel  and  revolting.  You  know  what 
marriage  is  !  And  what  it  must  be  without  love  on 
both  sides." 

The  minister  had  grown  quite  heated  and  red  in 
the  face. 


340  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

"  I  lose  all  patience !"  he  went  on  vehemently. 
"  This  poor  child  of  yours  has  somehow  been  brought 
to  believe  that  it  will  kill  her  sister  if  her  sister  does 
not  have  what  does  not  belong  to  her,  and  what  it 
is  not  in  the  power  of  all  the  world,  or  any  soul  in 
the  world,  to  give  her.  Her  sister  will  suffer — yes, 
keenly  ! — in  heart  and  in  pride  ;  but  she  will  not  die. 
You  will  suffer  too,  in  your  tenderness  for  her ;  but 
you  must  do  your  duty.  You  must  help  her  to  give 
up.  You  would  be  guilty  if  you  did  less.  Keep 
clearly  in  mind  that  you  are  doing  right,  and  the 
only  possible  good.  And  God  be  with  you !" 


XIX. 

"  HE  talked  sense,  Persis,"  said  Lapham  gently,  as 
he  mounted  to  his  wife's  side  in  the  buggy  and  drove 
slowly  homeward  through  the  dusk. 

"Yes,  he  talked  sense,"  she  admitted.  But  she 
added  bitterly,  "  I  guess,  if  he  had  it  to  do !  Oh, 
he 's  right,  and  it 's  got  to  be  done.  There  ain't  any 
other  way  for  it.  It 's  sense  ;  and,  yes,  it 's  justice." 
They  walked  to  their  door  after  they  left  the  horse 
at  the  livery  stable  around  the  corner,  where  Lapham 
kept  it.  "  I  want  you  should  send  Irene  up  to  our 
room  as  soon  as  we  get  in,  Silas." 

"Why,  ain't  you  going  to  have  any  supper  first  ?" 
faltered  Lapham  with  his  latch-key  in  the  lock. 

"No.  I  can't  lose  a  minute.  If  I  do,  I  shan't  do 
it  at  all." 

"  Look  here,  Persis,"  said  her  husband  tenderly, 
"let  rtw  do  this  thing." 

"Oh,  you!"  said  his  wife,  with  a  woman's  com 
passionate  scorn  for  a  man's  helplessness  in  such  a 

case.     "  Send  her  right  up.     And  I  shall  feel 

She  stopped  to  spare  him. 

Then  she  opened  the  door,  and  ran  up  to  her 
room  without  waiting  to  speak  to  Irene,  who  had 

341 


342  THE  RISE  OF 

come  into  the  hall  at  the  sound  of  her  father's  key 
in  the  door. 

"  I  guess  your  mother  wants  to  see  you  upstairs," 
said  Lapham,  looking  away. 

Her  mother  turned  round  and  faced  the  girl's 
wondering  look  as  Irene  entered  the  chamber,  so 
close  upon  her  that  she  had  not  yet  had  time  to  lay 
off  her  bonnet ;  she  stood  with  her  wraps  still  on 
her  arm. 

"  Irene  ! "  she  said  harshly,  "  there  is  something 
you  have  got  to  bear.  It 's  a  mistake  we  've  all 
made.  He  don't  care  anything  for  you.  He  never 
did.  He  told  Pen  so  last  night.  He  cares  for  her." 

The  sentences  had  fallen  like  blows.  But  the  girl 
had  taken  them  without  flinching.  She  stood  up 
immovable,  but  the  delicate  rose-liglit  of  her  com 
plexion  went  out  and  left  her  colourless.  She  did 
not  offer  to  speak. 

"  Why  don't  you  say  something  ? "  cried  her 
mother.  "  Do  you  want  to  kill  me,  Irene  ? " 

"  Why  should  I  want  to  hurt  you,  mamma  1 "  the 
girl  replied  steadily,  but  in  an  alien  voice.  "  There's 
nothing  to  say.  I  want  to  see  Pen  a  minute.' 

She  turned  and  left  the  room.  As  she  mounted 
the  stairs  that  led  to  her  own  and  her  sister's  rooms 
on  the  floor  above,  her  mother  helplessly  followed. 
Irene  went  first  to  her  own  room  at  the  front  of  the 
house,  and  then  came  out  leaving  the  door  open  and 
the  gas  flaring  behind  her.  The  mother  could  see 
that  she  had  tumbled  many  things  out  of  the  drawers 
of  her  bureau  upon  the  marble  top. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  343 

She  passed  her  mother,  where  she  stood  in  the 
entry.  "  You  can  come  too,  if  you  want  to, 
mamma,"  she  said. 

She  opened  Penelope's  door  without  knocking, 
and  went  in.  Penelope  sat  at  the  window,  as  in  the 
morning.  Irene  did  not  go  to  her ;  but  she  went 
and  laid  a  gold  hair-pin  on  her  bureau,  and  said, 
without  looking  at  her,  "  There  's  a  pin  that  I  got 
to-day,  because  it  was  like  his  sister's.  It  won't  be 
come  a  dark  person  so  well,  but  you  can  have  it." 

She  stuck  a  scrap  of  paper  in  the  side  of  Pene 
lope's  mirror.  "  There 's  that  account  of  Mr. 
Stanton's  ranch.  You  '11  want  to  read  it,  I  pre 
sume." 

She  laid  a  withered  boutonnikre  on  the  bureau 
beside  the  pin.  "  There  's  his  button-hole  bouquet. 
He  left  it  by  his  plate,  and  I  stole  it" 

She  had  a  pine-shaving  fantastically  tied  up  with 
a  knot  of  ribbon,  in  her  hand.  She  held  it  a 
moment;  then,  looking  deliberately  at  Penelope, 
she  went  up  to  her,  and  dropped  it  in  her  lap  with 
out  a  word.  She  turned,  and,  advancing  a  few  steps, 
tottered  and  seemed  about  to  fall. 

Her  mother  sprang  forward  with  an  imploring 
cry,  "  0  'Rene,  'Rene,  'Rene  ! " 

Irene  recovered  herself  before  her  mother  could 
reach  her.  "Don't  touch  me,"  she  said  icily. 
"  Mamma,  I  'm  going  to  put  on  my  things.  I  want 
papa  to  walk  with  me.  I  'm  choking  here." 

"  I — I  can't  let  you  go  out,  Irene,  child,"  began 
her  mother. 


344  THE  RISE  OF 

"  You  've  got  to,"  replied  the  girl.  "  Tell  papa  to 
hurry  his  supper." 

"  0  poor  soul !  He  doesn't  want  any  supper. 
lie  knows  it  too." 

"  I  don't  want  to  talk  about  that  Tell  him  to 
get  ready." 

She  left  them  once  more. 

Mrs.  Lapham  turned  a  hapless  glance  upon  Pene 
lope. 

"Go  and  tell  him,  mother,"  said  the  girl.  "I 
would,  if  I  could.  If  she  can  walk,  let  her.  It 's 
the  only  thing  for  her."  She  sat  still ;  she  did  not 
even  brush  to  the  floor  the  fantastic  thing  that  lay 
in  her  lap,  and  that  sent  up  faintly  the  odour  of  the 
sachet  powder  with  which  Irene  liked  to  perfume 
her  boxes. 

Lapham  went  out  with  the  unhappy  child,  and 
began  to  talk  with  her,  crazily,  incoherently,  enough. 

She  mercifully  stopped  him.  "Don't  talk,  papa. 
I  don't  want  any  one  should  talk  with  me." 

He  obeyed,  and  they  walked  silently  on  and  on. 
In  their  aimless  course  they  reached  the  new  house 
on  the  water  side  of  Beacon,  and  she  made  him  stop, 
and  stood  looking  up  at  it.  The  scaffolding  which 
had  so  long  defaced  the  front  was  gone,  and  in  the 
light  of  the  gas-lamp  before  it  all  the  architectural 
beauty  of  the  facade  was  suggested,  and  much  of 
the  finely  felt  detail  was  revealed.  Seymour  had 
pretty  nearly  satisfied  himself  in  that  rich  fa9ade  ; 
certainly  Lapham  had  not  stinted  him  of  the 
means. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  345 

"Well,"  said  the  girl,  "I  shall  never  live  in  it," 
and  she  began  to  walk  on. 

Lapham's  sore  heart  went  down,  as  he  lumbered 
heavily  after  her.  "  Oh  yes,  you  will,  Irene.  You  '11 
have  lots  of  good  times  there  yet." 

"  No,"  she  answered,  and  said  nothing  more  about 
it.  They  had  not  talked  of  their  trouble  at  all,  and 
they  did  not  speak  of  it  now.  Lapham  understood 
that  she  was  trying  to  walk  herself  weary,  and  he 
was  glad  to  hold  his  peace  and  let  her  have  her  way. 
She  halted  him  once  more  before  the  red  and  yellow 
lights  of  an  apothecary's  window. 

"Isn't  there  something  they  give  you  to  make 
you  sleep  *? "  she  asked  vaguely.  "  I  've  got  to  sleep 
to-night ! " 

Lapham  trembled.  "I  guess  you  don't  want 
anything,  Irene." 

"  Yes,  I  do  !  Get  me  something  !  "  she  retorted 
wilfully.  "If  you  don't,  I  shall  die.  I  must  sleep." 

They  went  in,  and  Lapham  asked  for  something 
to  make  a  nervous  person  sleep.  Irene  stood  poring 
over  the  show-case  full  of  brushes  and  trinkets, 
while  the  apothecary  put  up  the  bromide,  which  he 
guessed  would  be  about  the  best  thing.  She  did 
not  show  any  emotion ;  her  face  was  like  a  stone, 
while  her  father's  expressed  the  anguish  of  his 
sympathy.  He  looked  as  if  he  had  not  slept  for  a 
week ;  his  fat  eyelids  drooped  over  his  glassy  eyes, 
and  his  cheeks  and  throat  hung  flaccid.  He  started 
as  the  apothecary's  cat  stole  smoothly  up  and  rubbed 
itself  against  his  leg  :  and  it  was  to  him  that  the  man 


346  THE  RISE  OF 

said,  "  You  want  to  take  a  table-spoonful  of  that  as 
long  as  you  're  awake.  I  guess  it  won't  take  a  great 
many  to  fetch  you." 

"All  right,"  said  Lapham,  and  paid  and  went  out. 
"  I  don't  know  but  I  shall  want  some  of  it,"  he  said, 
with  a  joyless  laugh. 

Irene  came  closer  up  to  him  and  took  his  arm. 
He  laid  his  heavy  paw  on  her  gloved  fingers.  After 
a  while  she  said,  "  I  want  you  should  let  me  go  up 
to  Lapham  to-morrow." 

"  To  Lapham  1  Why,  to-morrow 's  Sunday,  Irene  I 
You  can't  go  to-morrow." 

"Well,  Monday,  then.  I  can  live  through  one 
day  here." 

"  Well,"  said  the  father  passively.  He  made  no 
pretence  of  asking  her  why  she  wished  to  go,  nor 
any  attempt  to  dissuade  her. 

"  Give  me  that  bottle,"  she  said,  when  he  opened 
the  door  at  home  for  her,  and  she  ran  up  to  her  own 
room. 

The  next  morning  Irene  came  to  breakfast  with 
her  mother ;  the  Colonel  and  Penelope  did  not 
appear,  and  Mrs.  Lapham  looked  sleep-broken  and 
careworn. 

The  girl  glanced  at  her.  "  Don't  you  fret  about 
me,  mamma,"  she  said.  "  I  shall  get  along."  She 
seemed  herself  as  steady  and  strong  as  rock. 

"  I  don't  like  to  see  you  keeping  up  so,  Irene,'' 
replied  her  mother.  "  It  '11  be  all  the  worse  for  you 
when  you  do  break.  Better  give  way  a  little  at  the 
start." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  347 

"  I  shan't  break,  and  I  've  given  way  all  I  'm 
going  to.  I  'm  going  to  Lapham  to-morrow, — I 
want  you  should  go  with  me,  mamma,- — and  I  guess 
I  can  keep  up  one  day  here.  All  about  it  is,  I  don't 
want  you  should  say  anything,  or  look  anything. 
And,  whatever  I  do,  I  don't  want  you  should  try  to 
stop  me.  And,  the  first  thing,  I  'm  going  to  take 
her  breakfast  up  to  her.  Don't ! "  she  cried,  inter 
cepting  the  protest  on  her  mother's  lips.  "  I  shall 
not  let  it  hurt  Pen,  if  I  can  help  it.  She 's  never 
done  a  thing  nor  thought  a  thing  to  wrong  me.  I 
had  to  fly  out  at  her  last  night ;  but  that 's  all  over 
now,  and  I  know  just  what  I  Ve  got  to  bear." 

She  had  her  way  unmolested.  She  carried  Pene 
lope's  breakfast  to  her,  and  omitted  no  care  or 
attention  that  could  make  the  sacrifice  complete, 
with  an  heroic  pretence  that  she  was  performing  no 
unusual  service.  They  did  not  speak,  beyond  her 
saying,  in  a  clear  dry  note,  "  Here 's  your  breakfast, 
Pen,"  and  her  sister 's  answering,  hoarsely  and  tremu 
lously,  "  Oh,  thank  you,  Irene."  And,  though  two 
or  three  times  they  turned  their  faces  toward  each 
other  while  Irene  remained  in  the  room,  mechani 
cally  putting  its  confusion  to  rights,  their  eyes  did 
not  meet.  Then  Irene  descended  upon  the  other 
rooms,  which  she  set  in  order,  and  some  of  which 
she  fiercely  swept  and  dusted.  She  made  the 
beds  ;  and  she  sent  the  two  servants  away  to  church 
as  soon  as  they  had  eaten  their  breakfast,  telling 
them  that  she  would  wash  their  dishes.  Through 
out  the  morning  her  father  and  mother  heard  her 


348  THE  RISE  OF 

about  the  work  of  getting  dinner,  with  certain 
silences  which  represented  the  moments  when  she 
stopped  and  stood  stock-still,  and  then,  readjusting 
her  burden,  forced  herself  forward  under  it  again. 

They  sat  alone  in  the  family  room,  out  of  which 
their  two  girls  seemed  to  have  died.  Lapham  could 
not  read  his  Sunday  papers,  and  she  had  no  heart  to 
go  to  church,  as  she  would  have  done  earlier  in  life 
when  in  trouble.  Just  then  she  was  obscurely  feel 
ing  that  the  church  was  somehow  to  blame  for  that 
counsel  of  Mr.  Se well's  on  which  they  had  acted. 

"  I  should  like  to  know,"  she  said,  having  brought 
the  matter  up,  "  whether  he  would  have  thought 
it  was  such  a  light  matter  if  it  had  been  his  own 
children.  Do  you  suppose  he  'd  have  been  so  ready 
to  act  on  his  own  advice  if  it  had  been  1 " 

"  He  told  us  the  right  thing  to  do,  Persis, — the 
only  thing.  We  couldn't  let  it  go  on,"  urged  her 
husband  gently. 

"  Well,  it  makes  me  despise  Pen  !  Irene 's  show 
ing  twice  the  character  that  she  is,  this  very  minute." 

The  mother  said  this  so  that  the  father  might 
defend  her  daughter  to  her.  He  did  not  fail. 
"  Irene 's  got  the  easiest  part,  the  way  I  look  at  it. 
And  you'll  see  that  Pen '11  know  how  to  behave 
when  the  time  comes." 

"What  do  you  want  she  should  do  ]" 

"  I  haven't  got  so  far  as  that  yet.  What  arc  we 
going  to  do  about  Irene  1" 

"  What  do  you  want  Pen  should  do,"  repeated 
Mrs.  Lapham,  "  when  it  comes  to  it  1 " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  349 

"Well,  I  don't  want  she  should  take  him,  for  one 
thing,"  said  Lapliam. 

This  seemed  to  satisfy  Mrs.  Lapliam  as  to  her 
husband,  and  she  said  in  defence  of  Corey,  "Why, 
I  don't  see  what  he 's  clone.  It 's  all  been  our  doing." 

"  Never  mind  that  now.     What  about  Irene  ?  " 

"  She  says  she 's  going  to  Lapham  to-morrow. 
She  feels  that  she 's  got  to  get  away  somewhere. 
It's  natural  she  should." 

"Yes,  and  I  presume  it  will  be  about  the  best 
thing  far  her.  Shall  you  go  with  her  1 " 

"  Yes." 

"Well."  He  comfortlessly  took  up  a  newspaper 
again,  and  she  rose  with  a  sigh,  and  went  to  her 
room  to  pack  some  things  for  the  morrow's  journey. 

After  dinner,  when  Irene  had  cleared  away  the 
last  trace  of  it  in  kitchen  and  dining-room  with 
unsparing  punctilio,  she  came  downstairs,  dressed 
to  go  out,  and  bade  her  father  come  to  walk  with 
her  again.  It  was  a  repetition  of  the  aimlessness  of 
the  last  night's  wanderings.  They  came  back,  and 
she  got  tea  for  them,  and  after  that  they  heard  her 
stirring  about  in  her  own  room,  as  if  she  were  busy 
about  many  things  ;  but  they  did  not  dare  to  look  in 
upon  her,  even  after  all  the  noises  had  ceased,  and 
they  knew  she  had  gone  to  bed. 

"  Yes  ;  it 's  a  thing  she  's  got  to  fight  out  by  her 
self,"  said  Mrs  Lapham. 

"I  guess  she'll  get  along,"  said  Lapham.  "But 
I  don't  want  you  should  misjudge  Pen  either. 
She 's  all  right  too.  She  ain't  to  blame." 


350  THE  RISE  OF 

"  Yes,  I  know.  But  I  can't  work  round  to  it  all 
at  once.  I  shan't  misjudge  her,  but  you  can't  expect 
me  to  get  over  it  right  away." 

"Mamma,"  said  Irene,  when  she  was  hurrying 
their  departure  the  next  morning,  "  what  did  she 
tell  him  when  he  asked  her  1" 

"Tell  him?"  echoed  the  mother;  and  after  a 
while  she  added,  "She  didn't  tell  him  anything." 

"  Did  she  say  anything  about  me  1 " 

"  She  said  he  mustn't  come  here  any  more." 

Irene  turned  and  went  into  her  sister's  room. 
"  Good-bye,  Pen,"  she  said,  kissing  her  with  an 
effect  of  not  seeing  or  touching  her.  "  I  want  you 
should  tell  him  all  about  it  If  he  'a  half  a  man,  he 
won't  give  up  till  he  knows  why  you  won't  have 
him  ;  and  he  has  a  right  to  know." 

"It  wouldn't  make  any  difference.  I  couldn't 
have  him  after " 

"That's  for  you  to  say.  But  if  you  don't  tell 
him  about  me,  /  will." 

"  'Rene  ! " 

"Yes!  You  needn't  say  I  cared  for  him.  But  you 
can  say  that  you  all  thought  he — cared  for — me." 

"  0  Irene— 

"  Don't !  "  Irene  escaped  from  the  arms  that  tried 
to  cast  themselves  about  her.  "  You  are  all  right, 
Pen.  You  haven't  done  anything.  You  Ve  helped 
me  all  you  could.  But  I  can't — yet." 

She  went  out  of  the  room  and  summoned  Mrs. 
Lapham  with  a  sharp  "Now,  mamma!"  and  went 
on  putting  the  last  things  into  her  trunks. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  351 

The  Colonel  went  to  the  station  with  them,  and 
put  them  on  the  train.  He  got  them  a  little  com 
partment  to  themselves  in  the  Pullman  car  ;  and  as 
he  stood  leaning  with  his  lifted  hands  against  the 
sides  of  the  doorway,  he  tried  to  say  something  con 
soling  and  hopeful  :  "  I  guess  you  '11  have  an  easy 
ride,  Irene.  I  don't  believe  it  '11  be  dusty,  any,  after 
the  rain  last  night." 

"Don't  you  stay  till  the  train  starts,  papa,"  re 
turned  the  girl,  in  rigid  rejection  of  his  futilities. 
"  Get  off,  now." 

"  Well,  if  you  want  I  should,"  he  said,  glad  to  be 
able  to  please  her  in  anything.  He  remained  on  the 
platform  till  the  cars  started.  He  saw  Irene  bustling 
about  in  the  compartment,  making  her  mother  com 
fortable  for  the  journey  ;  but  Mrs.  Lapham  did  not 
lift  her  head.  The  train  moved  off,  and  he  went 
heavily  back  to  his  business. 

From  time  to  time  during  the  day,  when  he  caught 
a  glimpse  of  him,  Corey  tried  to  make  out  from  his 
face  whether  he  knew  what  had  taken  place  between 
him  and  Penelope.  When  Rogers  came  in  about 
time  of  closing,  and  shut  himself  up  with  Lapham 
in  his  room,  the  young  man  remained  till  the  two 
came  out  together  and  parted  in  their  salutationless 
fashion. 

Lapham  showed  no  surprise  at  seeing  Corey  still 
there,  and  merely  answered,  "  Well  ! "  when  the 
young  man  said  that  he  wished  to  speak  with  him, 
and  led  the  way  back  to  his  room. 

Corey   shut  the   door   behind  them.       "I    only 


352  THE  RISE  OF 

wish  to  speak  to  you  in  case  you  know  of  the 
matter  already ;  for  otherwise  I  'm  bound  by  a  pro 
mise." 

"I  guess  I  know  what  you  mean.  It's  about 
Penelope." 

"  Yes,  it 's  about  Miss  Lapham.  I  am  greatly 
attached  to  her — you  '11  excuse  my  saying  it ;  I 
couldn't  excuse  myself  if  I  were  not." 

"Perfectly  excusable,"  said  Lapham.  "It's  all 
right" 

"  Oh,  I  'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  that ! "  cried  the 
young  fellow  joyfully.  "  I  want  you  to  believe  that 
this  isn't  a  new  thing  or  an  unconsidered  thing  with 
me — though  it  seemed  so  unexpected  to  her." 

Lapham  fetched  a  deep  sigh.  "It's  all  right 
as  far  as  I  'm  concerned — or  her  mother.  We  've 
both  liked  you  first-rate." 

"Yes?" 
.    "  But  there  seems  to  be  something  in  Penelope's 

mind — I  don't  know "     The  Colonel  consciously 

dropped  his  eyes. 

"  She  referred  to  something — I  couldn't  make  out 
what — but  I  hoped — I  hoped — that  with  your  leave 
I  might  overcome  it — the  barrier — whatever  it  was. 
Miss  Lapham — Penelope — gave  me  the  hope — that 
I  was — wasn't — indifferent  to  her " 

"  Yes,  I  guess  that 's  so,"  said  Lapham.  He 
suddenly  lifted  his  head,  and  confronted  the  young 
fellow's  honest  face  with  his  own  face,  so  different 
in  its  honesty.  "  Sure  you  never  made  up  to  any 
one  else  at  the  same  time  1 " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  353 

"  Never  !  Who  could  imagine  such  a  thing  ?  If 
that  's  all,  I  can  easily  -  " 

"  I  don't  say  that  's  all,  nor  that  that's  it.  I  don't 
want  you  should  go  upon  that  idea.  1  just  thought, 
may  be  —  you  hadn't  thought  of  it." 

"  No,  I  certainly  hadn't  thought  of  it  !  Such  a 
thing  would  have  been  so  impossible  to  me  that  I 
couldn't  have  thought  of  it  ;  and  it  's  so  shocking  to 
mo  now  that  I  don't  know  what  to  say  to  it." 

"  "Well,  don't  take  it  too  much  to  heart,"  said 
Lapham,  alarmed  at  the  feeling  he  had  excited  ;  "  I 
don't  say  she  thought  so.  I  was  trying  to  guess  — 
trying  to  -  " 

"  If  there  is  arav/thing  I  can  say  or  do  to  convince 


"  Oh,  it  ain't  necessary  to  say  anything.  I  'm  all 
right." 

"But  Miss  Lapham  !  I  may  see  her  again?  I 
may  try  to  convince  her  that  -  •" 

He  stopped  in  distress,  and  Lapham  afterwards 
told  his  wife  that  he  kept  seeing  the  face  of  Irene  as 
it  looked  when  he  parted  with  her  in  the  car  ;  and 
whenever  he  was  going  to  say  yes,  he  could  not  open 
his  lips.  At  the  same  time  he  could  not  help  feel 
ing  that  Penelope  had  a  right  to  what  was  her  own, 
and  Sewell's  words  came  back  to  him.  Besides, 
they  had  already  put  Irene  to  the  worst  suffering. 
Lapham  compromised,  as  he  imagined. 

"  You  can  come  round  to-night  and  see  me,  if  you 
want  to,"  he  said  ;  and  he  bore  grimly  the  gratitude 
that  the  young  man  poured  out  upon  him. 
z 


354  THE  RISE  OF 

Penelope  came  down  to  supper  and  took  her 
mother's  place  at  the  head  of  the  table. 

Lapham  sat  silent  in  her  presence  as  long  as  he 
could  bear  it.  Then  he  asked,  "  How  do  you  feel 
to-night,  Pen  ? " 

"  Oh,  like  a  thief,"  said  the  girl.  "  A  thief  that 
hasn't  been  arrested  yet." 

Lapham  waited  a  while  "before  he  said,  "  Well, 
now,  your  mother  and  I  want  you  should  hold  up 
on  that  a  while." 

"  It  isn't  for  you  to  say.  It 's  something  I  can't 
hold  up  on." 

"  Yes,  I  guess  you  can.  If  I  know  what 's  hap 
pened,  then  what 's  happened  is  a  thing  that  nobody 
is  to  blame  for.  And  we  want  you  should  make  the 
best  of  it  and  not  the  worst.  Heigh  ?  It  ain't 
going  to  help  Irene  any  for  you  to  hurt  yourself — or 
anybody  else ;  and  I  don't  want  you  should  take  up 
with  any  such  crazy  notion.  As  far  as  heard  from, 
you  haven't  stolen  anything,  and  whatever  you've 
got  belongs  to  you." 

"  Has  he  been  speaking  to  you,  father  1 " 

"Your  mother's  been  speaking  to  me." 

"  Has  he  been  speaking  to  you  ?" 

"  That's  neither  here  nor  there." 

"  Then  he 's  broken  his  word,  and  I  will  never 
speak  to  him  again  ! " 

"  If  he  was  any  such  fool  as  to  promise  that  he 
wouldn't  talk  to  me  on  a  subject " — Lapham  drew  a 
deep  breath,  and  then  made  the  plunge — "  that  I 
brought  up " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  355 

"  Did  you  bring  it  up  1 " 

"  The  same  as  brought  up — the  quicker  he  broke 
his  word  the  better;  and  I  want  you  should  act 
upon  that  idea.  Kecollect  that  it's  my  business, 
and  your  mother's  business,  as  well  as  yours,  and 
we  're  going  to  have  our  say.  He  hain't  done  any 
thing  wrong,  Pen,  nor  anything  that  he  's  going  to 
be  punished  for.  Understand  that.  He 's  got  to 
have  a  reason,  if  you're  not  going  to  have  him.  I 
don't  say  you  Ve  got  to  have  him ;  I  want  you 
should  feel  perfectly  free  about  that ;  but  I  do  say 
you  Ve  got  to  give  him  a  reason." 

"  Is  he  coming  here  1 " 

"  I  don't  know  as  you  'd  call  it  coming " 

"  Yes,  you  do,  father ! "  said  the  girl,  in  forlorn 
amusement  at  his  shuffling. 

"  He 's  coming  here  to  see  me " 

"  When 's  he  coming  1 " 

"  I  don't  know  but  he's  coming  to-night." 

"  And  you  want  I  should  see  him  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  but  you  'd  better." 

"  All  right.     I  '11  see  him." 

Lapham  drew  a  long  deep  breath  of  suspicion  in 
spired  by  this  acquiescence.  "  What  you  going  to 
do  ]  "  he  asked  presently. 

"  I  don't  know  yet,"  answered  the  girl  sadly.  "  It 
depends  a  good  deal  upon  what  he  does." 

"  Well,"  said  Lapham,  with  the  hungriness  of  un 
satisfied  anxiety  in  his  tone.  When  Corey's  card 
was  brought  into  the  family-room  where  he  and 
Penelope  were  sitting,  he  went  into  the  parlour  to 


356  THE  RISE  OF 

find  him.  "  I  guess  Penelope  wants  to  see  you,"  he 
said;  and,  indicating  the  family-room,  he  added, 
"  She 's  in  there,"  and  did  not  go  back  himself. 

Corey  made  his  way  to  the  girl's  presence  with 
open  trepidation,  which  was  not  allayed  by  her 
silence  and  languor.  She  sat  in  the  chair  where  she 
had  sat  the  other  night,  but  she  was  not  playing 
with  a  fan  now. 

He  came  toward  her,  and  then  stood  faltering. 
A  faint  smile  quivered  over  her  face  at  the  spectacle 
of  his  subjection.  "  Sit  down,  Mr.  Corey,"  she  said. 
"  There 's  no  reason  why  we  shouldn't  talk  it  over 
quietly ;  for  I  know  you  will  think  I  'm  right." 

"  I  'm  sure  of  that,"  he  answered  hopefully. 
"  When  I  saw  that  your  father  knew  of  it  to-day,  I 
asked  him  to  let  me  see  you  again.  I  'm  afraid  that 
I  broke  my  promise  to  you — technically " 

"  It  had  to  be  broken." 

He  took  more  courage  at  her  words.  "  But  I  've 
only  come  to  do  whatever  you  say,  and  not  to  be  an 
— annoyance  to  you " 

"  Yes,  you  have  to  know ;  but  I  couldn't  tell  you 
before.  Now  they  all  think  I  should." 

A  tremor  of  anxiety  passed  over  the  young  man's 
face,  on  which  she  kept  her  eyes  steadily  fixed. 

"  We  supposed  it — it  was — Irene " 

He  remained  blank  a  moment,  and  then  he  said 
with  a  smile  of  relief,  of  deprecation,  of  protest,  of 
amazement,  of  compassion — 

"  Oh !  Never  !  Never  for  an  instant !  How 
could  you  think  such  a  thing  1  It  was  impossible  ! 


SILAS  LAPEAM.  357 

I  never  thought  of  her.  But  I  see — I  see  !  I  can  ex 
plain — no,  there 's  nothing  to  explain  !  I  have  never 
knowingly  done  or  said  a  thing  from  first  to  last  to 
make  you  think  that.  I  see  how  terrible  it  is  ! "  he 
said ;  but  he  still  smiled,  as  if  he  could  not  take  it 
seriously.  "  I  admired  her  beauty — who  could  help 
doing  that? — and  I  thought  her  very  good  and 
sensible.  Why,  last  winter  in  Texas,  I  told  Stanton 
about  our  meeting  in  Canada,  and  we  agreed — I 
only  tell  you  to  show  you  how  far  I  always  was 
from  what  you  thought — that  he  must  come  North 
and  try  to  see  her,  and — and — of  course,  it  all 
sounds  very  silly  ! — and  he  sent  her  a  newspaper 
with  an  account  of  his  ranch  in  it " 

"  She  thought  it  came  from  you." 

"  Oh,  good  heavens  !  He  didn't  tell  me  till  after 
he  'd  done  it.  But  he  did  it  for  a  part  of  our  foolish 
joke.  And  when  I  met  your  sister  again,  I  only 
admired  her  as  before.  I  can  see,  now,  how  I  must 
have  seemed  to  be  seeking  her  out ;  but  it  was  to 
talk  of  you  with  her — I  never  talked  of  anything 
else  if  I  could  help  it,  except  when  I  changed  the 
subject  because  I  was  ashamed  to  be  always  talking 
of  you.  I  see  how  distressing  it  is  for  all  of  you. 
But  tell  me  that  you  believe  me  ! " 

"  Yes,  I  must.     It 's  all  been  our  mistake " 

"  It  has  indeed  !  But  there 's  no  mistake  about 
my  loving  you,  Penelope,"  he  said ;  and  the  old- 
fashioned  name,  at  which  she  had  often  mocked, 
was  sweet  to  her  from  his  lips. 

"  That  only  makes  it  worse  ! "  she  answered. 


358  THE  RISE  OF 

*'0h  no!"  he  gently  protested.  "It  makes  it 
better.  It  makes  it  right.  How  is  it  worse  ]  How 
is  it  wrong  ? " 

"  Can't  you  see  1  You  must  understand  all  now  ! 
Don't  you  see  that  if  she  believed  so  too,  and  if 
she "  She  could  not  go  on. 

"Did  she — did  your  sister — think  that  too?" 
gasped  Corey. 

"  She  used  to  talk  with  me  about  you  ;  and  when 
you  say  you  care  for  me  now,  it  makes  me  feel  like 
the  vilest  hypocrite  in  the  world.  That  day  you 
gave  her  the  list  of  books,  and  she  came  down  to 
Nantasket,  and  went  on  about  you,  I  helped  her  to 
natter  herself — oh  !  I  don't  see  how  she  can  forgive 
me.  But  she  knows  I  can  never  forgive  myself ! 
That 's  the  reason  she  can  do  it.  I  can  see  now," 
she  went  on,  "how  I  must  have  been  trying  to  get 
you  from  her.  I  can't  endure  it !  The  only  way  is 
for  me  never  to  see  you  or  speak  to  you  again  ! " 
She  laughed  forlornly.  "  That  would  be  pretty  hard 
on  you,  if  you  cared." 

"  I  do  care — all  the  world  ! " 

"  Well,  then,  it  would  if  you  were  going  to  keep 
on  caring.  You  won't  long,  if  you  stop  coming  now." 

"  Is  this  all,  then  ?    Is  it  the  end  ? " 

"  It 's — whatever  it  is.  I  can't  get  over  the 
thought  of  her.  Once  I  thought  I  could,  but  now  I 
see  that  I  can't.  It  seems  to  grow  worse.  Some 
times  I  feel  as  if  it  would  drive  me  crazy." 

He  sat  looking  at  her  with  lack-lustre  eyes.  The 
light  suddenly  came  back  into  them.  "Do  you 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  359 

think  I  could  love  you  if  you  had  been  false  to  her  1 
I  know  you  have  been  true  to  her,  and  truer  still  to 
yourself.  I  never  tried  to  see  her,  except  with  the 
hope  of  seeing  you  too.  I  supposed  she  must  know 
that  I  was  in  love  with  you.  From  the  first  time  I 
saw  you  there  that  afternoon,  you  filled  my  fancy. 
Do  you  think  I  was  flirting  with  the  child,  or — no, 
you  don't  think  that !  We  have  not  done  wrong. 
We  have  not  harmed  any  one  knowingly.  We  have 
a  right  to  each  other " 

"  No !  no  !  you  must  never  speak  to  me  of  this 
again.  If  you  do,  I  shall  know  that  you  despise 
me." 

"  But  how  will  that  help  her  ?     I  don't  love  her." 

"  Don't  say  that  to  me  !  I  have  said  that  to  my 
self  too  much." 

"  If  you  forbid  me  to  love  you,  it  won't  make  me 
love  her,"  he  persisted. 

She  was  about  to  speak,  but  she  caught  her  breath 
without  doing  so,  and  merely  stared  at  him. 

"  I  must  do  what  you  say,"  he  continued.  "  But 
what  good  will  it  do  her?  You  can't  make  her 
happy  by  making  yourself  unhappy." 

"  Do  you  ask  me  to  profit  by  a  wrong  1 " 

"  Not  for  the  world.     But  there  is  no  wrong  ! " 

"  There  is  something — I  don't  know  what. 
There's  a  wall  between  us.  I  shall  dash  myself 
against  it  as  long  as  I  live ;  but  that  won't  break  it." 

"  Oh  ! "  he  groaned.  "  We  have  done  no  wrong. 
Why  should  we  suffer  from  another's  mistake  as  if 
it  were  our  sin  1 " 


360  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  don't  know.     But  we  must  suffer." 

"  Well,  then,  I  will  not,  for  my  part,  and  I  will 
not  let  you.  If  you  care  for  me — 

"  You  had  no  right  to  know  it." 

"You  make  it  my  privilege  to  keep  you  from 
doing  wrong  for  the  right's  sake.  I  'm  sorry,  with 
all  my  heart  and  soul,  for  this  error;  but  I  can't 
blame  myself,  and  I  won't  deny  myself  the  happi 
ness  I  haven't  done  anything  to  forfeit  I  will 
never  give  you  up.  I  will  wait  as  long  as  you 
please  for  the  time  when  you  shall  feel  free  from 
this  mistake;  but  you  shall  be  mine  at  last.  Re 
member  that.  I  might  go  away  for  months — a 
year,  even ;  but  that  seems  a  cowardly  and  guilty 
thing,  and  I  'm  not  afraid,  and  I  'm  not  guilty,  and 
I  'm  going  to  stay  here  and  try  to  see  you." 

She  shook  her  head.  "  It  won't  change  anything. 
Don't  you  see  that  there 's  no  hope  for  us  1 " 

"  When  is  she  coming  back  t "  he  asked. 

"  I  don't  know.  Mother  wants  father  to  come 
and  take  her  out  West  for  a  while." 

"  She 's  up  there  in  the  country  with  your  mother 

yet?" 

"  Yes." 

He  was  silent ;  then  he  said  desperately — 

"Penelope,  she  is  very  young;  and  perhaps — 
perhaps  she  might  meet — — " 

"  It  would  make  no  difference.  It  wouldn't 
change  it  for  me." 

"  You  are  cruel — cruel  to  yourself,  if  you  love  me, 
and  cruel  to  me.  Don't  you  remember  that  night — 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  361 

before  I  spoke — you  \vere  talking  of  that  book ;  and 
you  said  it  was  foolish  and  wicked  to  do  as  that 
girl  did.  Why  is  it  different  with  you,  except  that 
you  give  me  nothing,  and  can  never  give  me  any 
thing  when  you  take  yourself  away  ?  If  it  were 
anybody  else,  I  am  sure  you  would  say " 

"  But  it  isn't  anybody  else,  and  that  makes  it  im 
possible.  Sometimes  I  think  it  might  be  if  I  would 
only  say  so  to  myself,  and  then  all  that  I  said  to 
her  about  you  comes  up " 

"  I  will  wait.  It  can't  always  come  up.  I  won't 
urge  you  any  longer  now.  But  you  will  see  it 
differently — more  clearly.  Good-bye — no  !  Good 
night !  I  shall  come  again  to-morrow.  It  will 
surely  come  right,  and,  whatever  happens,  you  have 
done  no  wrong.  Try  to  keep  that  in  mind.  I  am 
so  happy,  in  spite  of  all ! " 

He  tried  to  take  her  hand,  but  she  put  it  behind 
her.  "  No,  no  !  I  can't  let  you — yet ! " 


XX. 

AFTER  a  week  Mrs.  Lapham  returned,  leaving 
Irene  alone  at  the  old  homestead  in  Vermont. 
"She's  comfortable  there — as  comfortable  as  she 
can  be  anywheres,  I  guess,"  she  said  to  her  husband 
as  they  drove  together  from  the  station,  where  he 
had  met  her  in  obedience  to  her  telegraphic  summons. 
"  She  keeps  herself  busy  helping  about  the  house ; 
and  she  goes  round  amongst  the  hands  in  their 
houses.  There  's  sickness,  and  you  know  how  help 
ful  she  is  where  there 's  sickness.  She  don't  com 
plain  any.  I  don't  know  as  I  've  heard  a  word  out 
of  her  mouth  since  we  left  home ;  but  I  'm  afraid 
it'll  wear  on  her,  Silas." 

"You  don't  look  over  and  above  well  yourself, 
Persis,"  said  her  husband  kindly. 

"  Oh,  don't  talk  about  me.  What  I  want  to  know 
is  whether  you  can't  get  the  time  to  run  off  with 
her  somewhere.  I  wrote  to  you  about  Dubuque. 
She  '11  work  herself  down,  I  'm  afraid ;  and  then  I 
don't  know  as  she  '11  be  over  it.  But  if  she  could 
go  off,  and  be  amused — see  new  people " 

"I  could  make  the  time,"  said  Lapham,  "if  I  had 
to.  But,  as  it  happens,  I  've  got  to  go  out  West  on 

362 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  363 

business, — I  '11  tell  you  about  it, — and  I  '11  take 
Irene  along." 

"  Good  ! "  said  his  wife.  "  That 's  about  the  best 
thing  I  've  heard  yet.  Where  you  going  1 " 

"  Out  Dubuque  way." 

"  Anything  the  matter  with  Bill's  folks  1 " 

"No.     It's  business." 

"  How  's  Pen  ? " 

"  I  guess  she  ain't  much  better  than  Irene." 

"  He  been  about  any  ]  " 

"  Yes.     But  I  can't  see  as  it  helps  matters  much." 

"  Tchk  ! "  Mrs.  Lapham  fell  back  against  the 
carriage  cushions.  "  I  declare,  to  see  her  Avilling  to 
take  the  man  that  we  all  thought  wanted  her  sister ! 
I  can't  make  it  seem  right." 

"  It's  right,"  said  Lapham  stoutly;  "but  I  guess 
she  ain't  willing  ;  I  wish  she  was.  But  there  don't 
seem  to  be  any  way  out  of  the  thing,  anywhere. 
It 's  a  perfect  snarl.  But  I  don't  want  you  should 
be  anyways  ha'sh  with  Pen." 

Mrs.  Lapham  answered  nothing;  but  when  she 
met  Penelope  she  gave  the  girl's  wan  face  a  sharp 
look,  and  began  to  whimper  on  her  neck. 

Penelope's  tears  were  all  spent.  "  Well,  mother," 
she  said,  "  you  come  back  almost  as  cheerful  as  you 
went  away.  I  needn't  ask  if  'Rene  's  in  good  spirits. 
We  all  seem  to  be  overflowing  with  them.  I  sup 
pose  this  is  one  way  of  congratulating  me.  Mrs. 
Corey  hasn't  been  round  to  do  it  yet." 

"  Are  you — are  you  engaged  to  him,  Pen  ? " 
gasped  her  mother. 


364  THE  RISE  OF 

"Judging  by  my  feelings,  I  should  say  not.  I 
feel  as  if  it  was  a  last  will  and  testament.  But 
you  'd  better  ask  him  when  he  comes." 

"  I  can't  bear  to  look  at  him," 

"  I  guess  he  's  used  to  that  He  don't  seem  to 
expect  to  be  looked  at.  Well !  we  're  all  just  where 
we  started.  I  wonder  how  long  it  will  keep  up.  " 

Mrs.  Lapham  reported  to  her  husband  when  he 
came  home  at  night — he  had  left  his  business  to  go 
and  meet  her,  and  then,  after  a  desolate  dinner  at 
the  house,  had  returned  to  the  office  again — that 
Penelope  was  fully  as  bad  as  Irene.  "And  she 
don't  know  how  to  work  it  off.  Irene  keeps  doing  ; 
but  Pen  just  sits  in  her  room  and  mopes.  She  don't 
even  read.  I  went  up  this  afternoon  to  scold  her 
about  the  state  the  house  was  in — you  can  see  that 
Irene's  away  by  the  perfect  mess ;  but  when  I  saw 
her  through  the  crack  of  the  door  I  hadn't  the  heart. 
She  sat  there  with  her  hands  in  her  lap,  just  staring. 
And,  my  goodness  !  she  jumped  so  when  she  saw 
me;  and  then  she  fell  back,  and  began  to  laugh, 
and  said  she,  '  I  thought  it  was  my  ghost,  mother ! ' 
I  felt  as  if  I  should  give  way." 

Lapham  listened  jadedly,  and  answered  far  from 
the  point.  "I  guess  I've  got  to  start  out  there 
pretty  soon,  Per  sis." 

"  How  soon  ?  " 

"Well,  to-morrow  morning." 

Mrs.  Lapham  sat  silent.  Then,  "  All  right,"  she 
said.  "  I  '11  get  you  ready." 

"I  shall  run  up  to  Lapham  for  Irene,  and  then 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  365 

I  '11  push  on  through  Canada.  I  can  get  there  about 
as  quick." 

"  Is  it  anything  you  can  tell  me  about,  Silas  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Lapham.  "  But  it 's  a  long  story, 
and  I  guess  you  've  got  your  hands  pretty  full  as  it 
is.  I  've  been  throwing  good  money  after  bad, — 
the  usual  way, — and  now  I  've  got  to  see  if  I  can 
save  the  pieces." 

After  a  moment  Mrs.  Lapham  asked,  "Is  it — 
Eogers  1 " 

"It's  Rogers." 

"I  didn't  want  you  should  get  in  any  deeper 
with  him." 

"  No.  You  didn't  want  I  should  press  him  either; 
and  I  had  to  do  one  or  the  other.  And  so  I  got  in 
deeper." 

"  Silas,"  said  his  wife,  "  I  'm  afraid  I  made  you  ! " 

"  It 's  all  right,  Persis,  as  far  forth  as  that  goes. 
I  was  glad  to  make  it  up  with  him — I  jumped  at 
the  chance.  I  guess  Rogers  saw  that  he  had  a  soft 
thing  in  me,  and  he 's  worked  it  for  all  it  was  worth. 
But  it  '11  all  come  out  right  in  the  end." 

Lapham  said  this  as  if  he  did  not  care  to  talk  any 
more  about  it.  He  added  casually,  "Pretty  near 
everybody  but  the  fellows  that  owe  me  seem  to 
expect  me  to  do  a  cash  business,  all  of  a  sudden." 

"Do  you  mean  that  you've  got  payments  to 
make,  and  that  people  are  not  paying  you  ?  " 

Lapham  winced  a  little.  "  Something  like  that," 
he  said,  and  he  lighted  a  cigar.  "  But  when  I  tell 
you  it 's  all  right,  I  mean  it,  Persis.  I  ain't  going 


366  THE  RISE  OF 

to  let  the  grass  grow  under  my  feet,  though, — 
especially  while  Rogers  digs  the  ground  away  from 
the  roots." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

"  If  it  has  to  come  to  that,  I  'm  going  to  squeeze 
him."  Lapham's  countenance  lighted  up  with 
greater  joy  than  had  yet  visited  it  since  the  day 
they  had  driven  out  to  Brookline.  "Milton  K. 
Rogers  is  a  rascal,  if  you  want  to  know ;  or  else  all 
the  signs  fail.  But  I  guess  he  '11  find  he 's  got  his 
come-uppance."  Lapham  shut  his  lips  so  that  the 
short,  reddish-grey  beard  stuck  straight  out  on 
them. 

"  What 's  he  done  ? " 

"What's  he  done?  Well,  now,  I'll  tell  you 
what  he 's  done,  Persis,  since  you  think  Rogers  is 
such  a  saint,  and  that  I  used  him  so  badly  in  getting 
him  out  of  the  business.  He 's  been  dabbling  in 
every  sort  of  fool  thing  you  can  lay  your  tongue  to, 
— wild-cat  stocks,  patent-rights,  land  speculations, 
oil  claims, — till  he 's  run  through  about  everything. 
But  he  did  have  a  big  milling  property  out  on  the 
line  of  the  P.  Y.  &  X.,  —saw-mills  and  grist-mills 
and  lands, — and  for  the  last  eight  years  he 's  been 
doing  a  land-office  business  with  'em — business  that 
would  have  made  anybody  else  rich.  But  you  can't 
make  Milton  K.  Rogers  rich,  any  more  than  you 
can  fat  a  hide-bound  colt.  It  ain't  in  him.  He  'd 
run  through  Vanderbilt,  Jay  Gould,  and  Tom  Scott 
rolled  into  one  in  less  than  six  months,  give  him  a 
chance,  and  come  out  and  want  to  borrow  money 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  367 

of  you.  Well,  he  won't  borrow  any  more  money  of 
me ;  and  if  he  thinks  I  don't  know  as  much  about 
that  milling  property  as  he  does  he's  mistaken. 
I  've  taken  his  mills,  but  I  guess  I  've  got  the  inside 
track ;  Bill 's  kept  me  posted ;  and  now  I  'm  going 
out  there  to  see  how  I  can  unload ;  and  I  shan't 
mind  a  great  deal  if  Rogers  is  under  the  load  when 
it 's  off  once." 

"  I  don't  understand  you,  Silas." 

"  Why,  it 's  just  this.  The  Great  Lacustrine  & 
Polar  Railroad  has  leased  the  P.  Y.  &  X.  for  ninety- 
nine  years, — bought  it,  practically, — and  it 's  going 
to  build  car- works  right  by  those  mills,  and  it  may 
want  them.  And  Milton  K.  Rogers  knew  it  when 
he  turned  'em  in  on  me." 

"  Well,  if  the  road  wants  them,  don't  that  make  the 
mills  valuable  1  You  can  get  what  you  ask  for  them ! " 

"  Can  I  ?  The  P.  Y.  &  X  is  the  only  road  that 
runs  within  fifty  miles  of  the  mills,  and  you  can't 
get  a  foot  of  lumber  nor  a  pound  of  flour  to  market 
any  other  way.  As  long  as  he  had  a  little  local 
road  like  the  P.  Y.  &  X.  to  deal  with,  Rogers  could 
manage;  but  when  it  come  to  a  big  through  line 
like  the  G.  L.  &  P.,  he  couldn't  stand  any  chance  at 
all.  If  such  a  road  as  that  took  a  fancy  to  his  mills, 
do  you  think  it  would  pay  what  he  asked]  No, 
sir!  He  would  take  what  the  road  offered,  or  else 
the  road  would  tell  him  to  carry  his  flour  and 
lumber  to  market  himself." 

"And  do  you  suppose  he  knew  the  G.  L.  &  P. 
wanted  the  mills  when  he  turned  them  in  on  you  ? " 


368  THE  RISE  OF 

asked  Mrs.  Lapham  aghast,  and  falling  helplessly 
into  his  alphabetical  parlance. 

The  Colonel  laughed  scoffingly.  "Well,  when 
Milton  K.  Rogers  don't  know  which  side  his 
bread 's  buttered  on  1  I  don't  understand,"  he 
added  thoughtfully,  "how  he's  always  letting  it 
fall  on  the  buttered  side.  But  such  a  man  as  that 
is  sure  to  have  a  screw  loose  in  him  somewhere." 

Mrs.  Lapham  sat  discomfited.  All  that  she  could 
say  was,  "Well,  I  want  you  should  ask  yourself 
whether  Rogers  would  ever  have  gone  wrong,  or 
got  into  these  ways  of  his,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  your 
forcing  him  out  of  the  business  when  you  did.  I 
want  you  should  think  whether  you  're  not  respon 
sible  for  everything  he  's  done  since." 

"  You  go  and  get  that  bag  of  mine  ready,"  said 
Lapham  sullenly.  "I  guess  I  can  take  care  of 
myself.  And  Milton  K.  Rogers  too,"  he  added. 

That  evening  Corey  spent  the  time  after  dinner 
in  his  own  room,  with  restless  excursions  to  the 
library,  where  his  mother  sat  with  his  father  and 
sisters,  and  showed  no  signs  of  leaving  them.  At 
last,  in  coming  down,  he  encountered  her  on  the 
stairs,  going  up.  They  both  stopped  consciously. 

"  I  would  like  to  speak  with  you,  mother.  I  have 
been  waiting  to  see  you  alone." 

"  Come  to  my  room,"  she  said. 

"I  have  a  feeling  that  you  know  what  I  want  to 
say,"  he  began  there. 

She  looked  up  at  him  where  lie  stood  by  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  369 

chimney-piece,  and  tried  to  put  a  cheerful  note  into 
her  questioning  "  Yes  ? " 

"  Yes ;  and  I  have  a  feeling  that  you  won't  like  it 
— that  you  won't  approve  of  it.  I  wish  you  did — 
I  wish  you  could  !  " 

"I'm  used  to  liking  and  approving  everything 
you  do,  Tom.  If  I  don't  like  this  at  once,  I  shall 
try  to  like  it — you  know  that — for  your  sake,  what 
ever  it  is." 

"  I  'd  better  be  short,"  he  said,  with  a  quick  sigh. 
"It's  about  Miss  Lapham."  He  hastened  to  add, 
"I  hope  it  isn't  surprising  to  you.  I'd  have  told 
you  before,  if  I  could." 

"No,  it  isn't  surprising.  I  was  afraid — I  sus 
pected  something  of  the  kind." 

They  were  both  silent  in  a  painful  silence. 

"  Well,  mother  ? "  he  asked  at  last. 

"If  it's  something  you've  quite  made  up  your 
mind  to " 

"  It  is  !" 

"  And  if  you  Ve  already  spoken  to  her " 

"  I  had  to  do  that  first,  of  course." 

"  There  would  be  no  use  of  my  saying  anything, 
even  if  I  disliked  it." 

"  You  do  dislike  it !" 

"  No — no  !  I  can't  say  that.  Of  course  I  should 
have  preferred  it  if  you  had  chosen  some  nice  girl 
among  those  that  you  had  been  brought  up  with — 
some  friend  or  associate  of  your  sisters,  whose  people 
we  had  known " 

"  Yes,  I  understand  that,  and  I  can  assure  you 
2A 


370  THE  RISE  OF 

that  I  haven't  been  indifferent  to  your  feelings.  I 
have  tried  to  consider  them  from  the  first,  and  it 
kept  me  hesitating  in  a  way  that  I  'm  ashamed  to 
think  of  ;  for  it  wasn't  quite  right  towards — others. 
But  your  feelings  and  my  sisters'  have  been  in  my 
mind,  and  if  I  couldn't  yield  to  what  I  supposed 
they  must  be,  entirely " 

Even  so  good  a  son  and  brother  as  this,  when  it 
came  to  his  love  affair,  appeared  to  think  that  he 
had  yielded  much  in  considering  the  feelings  of  his 
family  at  all. 

His  mother  hastened  to  comfort  him.  "  I  know 
— I  know.  I  've  seen  for  some  time  that  this  might 
happen,  Tom,  and  I  have  prepared  myself  for  it.  I 
have  talked  it  over  with  your  father,  and  'we  both 
agreed  from  the  beginning  that  you  were  not  to  be 
hampered  by  our  feeling.  Still — it  is  a  surprise. 
It  must  be." 

"  I  know  it  I  can  understand  your  feeling.  But 
I  'm  sure  that  it 's  one  that  will  last  only  while  you 
don't  know  her  well." 

"  Oh,  I  'm  sure  of  that,  Tom.  I  'm  sure  that  we 
shall  all  be  fond  of  her, — for  your  sake  at  first,  even 
— and  I  hope  she  '11  like  us." 

"I  am  quite  certain  of  that,"  said  Corey,  with  that 
confidence  which  experience  does  not  always  confirm 
in  such  cases.  "  And  your  taking  it  as  you  do  lifts 
a  tremendous  load  off  me." 

But  he  sighed  so  heavily,  and  looked  so  troubled, 
that  his  mother  said,  "  Well,  now,  you  mustn't  think 
of  that  any  more.  We  wish  what  is  for  your  happi- 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  371 

ness,  my  son,  and  we  will  gladly  reconcile  ourselves 
to  anything  that  might  have  been  disagreeable.  I 
suppose  we  needn't  speak  of  the  family.  We  must 
both  think  alike  about  them.  They  have  their — 
drawbacks,  but  they  are  thoroughly  good  people,  and 
I  satisfied  myself  the  other  night  that  they  were  not 
to  be  dreaded."  She  rose,  and  put  her  arm  round 
his  neck.  "And  I  wish  you  joy,  Tom  !  If  she's 
half  as  good  as  you  are,  you  will  both  be  very 
happy."  She  was  going  to  kiss  him,  but  something 
in  his  looks  stopped  her — an  absence,  a  trouble, 
which  broke  out  in  his  words. 

u  I  must  tell  you,  mother  !  There 's  been  a  com 
plication — a  mistake — that's  a  blight  on  me  yet, 
and  that  it  sometimes  seems  as  if  we  couldn't  escape 
from.  I  wonder  if  you  can  help  us  !  They  all 
thought  I  meant — the  other  sister." 

"  0  Tom  !     But  how  could  they  ? " 

"  I  don't  know.  It  seemed  so  glaringly  plain — I 
was  ashamed  of  making  it  so  outright  from  the 
beginning.  But  they  did.  Even  she  did,  her 
self  ! " 

"  But  where  could  they  have  thought  your  eyes 
were — your  taste  1  It  wouldn't  be  surprising  if 
any  one  were  taken  with  that  wonderful  beauty ; 
and  I  'm  sure  she  's  good  too.  But  I  'm  astonished 
at  them !  To  think  you  could  prefer  that  little, 
black,  odd  creature,  with  her  joking  and " 

"  Mother  !  "  cried  the  young  man,  turning  a  ghastly 
face  of  warning  upon  her. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Tom  1 " 


372  THE  RISE  OF 

"Did  you — did — did  you  think  so  too — that  it 
was  Irene  I  meant  ? " 

"  Why,  of  course  ! " 

He  stared  at  her  hopelessly. 

"  0  my  son  ! "  she  said,  for  all  comment  on  the 
situation. 

"  Don't  reproach  me,  mother  !  I  couldn't  stand 
it" 

"  No.  I  didn't  mean  to  do  that  But  how — how 
could  it  happen  1 " 

"  I  don't  know.  When  she  first  told  me  that  they 
had  understood  it  so,  I  laughed — almost — it  was  so 
far  from  me.  But  now  when  you  seem  to  have  had 
the  same  idea —  Did  you  all  think  so  ? " 

"  Yes." 

They  remained  looking  at  each  other.  Then  Mrs. 
Corey  began  :  "  It  did  pass  through  my  mind  once 
— that  day  I  went  to  call  upon  them — that  it  might 
not  be  as  we  thought ;  but  I  knew  so  little  of — 
of " 

"  Penelope,"  Corey  mechanically  supplied. 

"  Is  that  her  name  ? — I  forgot — that  I  only 
thought  of  you  in  relation  to  her  long  enough  to 
reject  the  idea ;  and  it  was  natural  after  our  seeing 
something  of  the  other  one  last  year,  that  I  might 
suppose  you  had  formed  some — attachment " 

"  Yes ;  that 's  what  they  thought  too.  But  I 
never  thought  of  her  as  anything  but  a  pretty  child. 
I  was  civil  to  her  because  you  wished  it ;  and  when 
I  met  her  here  again,  I  only  tried  to  see  her  so  that 
I  could  talk  with  her  about  her  sister." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  373 

"  You  needn't  defend  yourself  to  me,  Tom,"  said 
his  mother,  proud  to  say  it  to  him  in  his  trouble. 
"  It 's  a  terrible  business  for  them,  poor  things,"  she 
added.  "  I  don't  know  how  they  could  get  over  it. 
But,  of  course,  sensible  people  must  see " 

"They  haven't  got  over  it.  At  least  she  hasn't. 
Since  it 's  happened,  there 's  been  nothing  that  hasn't 
made  me  prouder  and  fonder  of  her  !  At  first  I 
was  charmed  with  her — my  fancy  was  taken ;  she 
delighted  me — I  don't  know  how ;  but  she  was 
simply  the  most  fascinating  person  I  ever  saw. 
Now  I  never  think  of  that.  I  only  think  how  good 
she  is — how  patient  she  is  with  me,  and  how 
unsparing  she  is  of  herself.  If  she  were  concerned 
alone — if  I  were  not  concerned  too — it  would  soon 
end.  She 's  never  had  a  thought  for  anything  but 
her  sister's  feeling  and  mine  from  the  beginning.  I 
go  there, — I  know  that  I  oughtn't,  but  I  can't 
help  it, — and  she  suffers  it,  and  tries  not  to  let  me 
see  that  she  is  suffering  it.  There  never  was  any 
one  like  her — so  brave,  so  true,  so  noble.  I  won't 
give  her  up — I  can't.  But  it  breaks  my  heart  when 
she  accuses  herself  of  what  was  all  my  doing.  We 
spend  our  time  trying  to  reason  out  of  it,  but  we 
always  come  back  to  it  at  last,  and  I  have  to  hear 
her  morbidly  blaming  herself.  Oh  ! " 

Doubtless  Mrs.  Corey  imagined  some  reliefs  to 
this  suffering,  some  qualifications  of  this  sublimity 
in  a  girl  she  had  disliked  so  distinctly  ;  but  she  saw 
none  in  her  son's  behaviour,  and  she  gave  him  her 
further  sympathy.  She  tried  to  praise  Penelope, 


374  THE  RISE  OF 

and  said  that  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  she 
could  reconcile  herself  at  once  to  everything.  "I 
shouldn't  have  liked  it  in  her  if  she  had.  But  time 
will  bring  it  all  right  And  if  she  really  cares  for 
you " 

"  I  extorted  that  from  her." 

"  Well,  then,  you  must  look  at  it  in  the  best  light 
you  can.  There  is  no  blame  anywhere,  and  the 
mortification  and  pain  is  something  that  must  be 
lived  down.  That's  all.  And  don't  let  what  I 
said  grieve  you,  Tom.  You  know  I  scarcely  knew 
her,  and  I — I  shall  be  sure  to  like  any  one  you  like, 
after  all" 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  said  the  young  man  drearily. 
"  Will  you  tell  father  1" 

"  If  you  wish." 

"  He  must  know.  And  I  couldn't  stand  any  more 
of  this,  just  yet — any  more  mistake." 

"  I  will  tell  him,"  said  Mrs.  Corey ;  and  it  was 
naturally  the  next  thing  for  a  woman  who  dwelt  so 
much  on  decencies  to  propose :  "  We  must  go  to  call 
on  her — your  sisters  and  I.  They  have  never  seen 
her  even ;  and  she  mustn't  be  allowed  to  think  we  're 
indifferent  to  her,  especially  under  the  circumstances." 

"  Oh  no  !  Don't  go — not  yet,"  cried  Corey,  with 
an  instinctive  perception  that  nothing  could  be  worse 
for  him.  "We  must  wait — we  must  be  patient. 
I  'm  afraid  it  would  be  painful  to  her  now." 

He  turned  away  without  speaking  further;  and 
his  mother's  eyes  followed  him  wistfully  to  the  door. 
There  were  some  questions  that  she  would  have  liked 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  375 

to  ask  him  ;  but  she  had  to  content  herself  with  try 
ing  to  answer  them  when  her  husband  put  them  to 
her. 

There  was  this  comfort  for  her  always  in  Brom- 
field  Corey,  that  he  never  was  much  surprised  at  any 
thing,  however  shocking  or  painful.  His  standpoint 
in  regard  to  most  matters  was  that  of  the  Sympa 
thetic  humorist  who  would  be  glad  to  have  the  victim 
of  circumstance  laugh  with  him,  but  was  not  too 
much  vexed  when  the  victim  could  not.  He  laughed 
now  when  his  wife,  with  careful  preparation,  got 
the  facts  of  his  son's  predicament  fully  under  his  eye. 

"  Really,  Bromfield,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  see  how 
you  can  laugh.  Do  you  see  any  way  out  of  it  1 " 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  way  has  been  found 
already.  Tom  has  told  his  love 'to  the  right  one, 
and  the  wrong  one  knows  it.  Time  will  do  the 
rest." 

"  If  I  had  so  low  an  opinion  of  them  all  as  that, 
it  would  make  me  very  unhappy.  It 's  shocking  to 
think  of  it." 

"It  is  upon  the  theory  of  ladies  and  all  young 
people,"  said  her  husband,  with  a  shrug,  feeling  his 
way  to  the  matches  on  the  mantel,  and  then  drop 
ping  them  with  a  sigh,  as  if  recollecting  that  he  must 
not  smoke  there.  "  I  've  no  doubt  Tom  feels  him 
self  an  awful  sinner.  But  apparently  he  's  resigned 
to  his  sin ;  he  isn't  going  to  give  her  up." 

"  I  'm  glad  to  say,  for  the  sake  of  human  nature, 
that  she  isn't  resigned — little  as  I  like  her,"  cried 
Mrs.  Corey. 


376  THE  RISE  OF 

Her  husband  shrugged  again.  "  Oh,  there  mustn't 
be  any  indecent  haste.  She  will  instinctively  observe 
the  proprieties.  But  come,  now,  Anna  !  you  mustn't 
pretend  to  me  here,  in  the  sanctuary  of  home,  that 
practically  the  human  affections  don't  reconcile  them 
selves  to  any  situation  that  the  human  sentiments 
condemn.  Suppose  the  wrong  sister  had  died : 
would  the  right  one  have  had  any  scruple  in  marry 
ing  Tom,  after  they  had  both  '  waited  a  proper  time,' 
as  the  phrase  is  ? " 

"  Bromfield,  you  're  shocking  ! " 

"  Not  more  shocking  than  reality.  You  may  regard 
this  as  a  second  marriage."  He  looked  at  her  with 
twinkling  eyes,  full  of  the  triumph  the  spectator  of 
his  species  feels  in  signal  exhibitions  of  human 
nature.  "  Depend  upon  it,  the  right  sister  will  be 
reconciled ;  the  wrong  one  will  be  consoled  ;  and  all 
will  go  merry  as  a  marriage  bell — a  second  marriage 
bell.  Why,  it 's  quite  like  a  romance  ! "  Here  he 
laughed  outright  again. 

"  Well,"  sighed  the  wife,  "  I  could  almost  wish 
the  right  one,  as  you  call  her,  would  reject  Tom, 
I  dislike  her  so  much." 

"Ah,  now  you're  talking  business,  Anna,"  said 
her  husband,  with  his  hands  spread  behind  the  back 
he  turned  comfortably  to  the  fire.  "  The  whole 
Lapham  tribe  is  distasteful  to  me.  As  I  don't 
happen  to  have  seen  our  daughter-in-law  elect,  I 
have  still  the  hope — which  you  're  disposed  to  forbid 
me — that  she  may  not  be  quite  so  unacceptable  as 
the  others." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  377 

"  Do  you  really  feel  so,  Bromfield  ? "  anxiously 
inquired  his  wife. 

"  Yes — I  think  I  do ; "  and  he  sat  down,  and 
stretched  out  his  long  legs  toward  the  fire. 

"  But  it 's  very  inconsistent  of  you  to  oppose  the 
matter  now,  when  you've  shown  so  much  indiffer 
ence  up  to  this  time.  You've  told  me,  all  along, 
that  it  was  of  no  use  to  oppose  it." 

"  So  I  have.  I  was  convinced  of  that  at  the  be 
ginning,  or  my  reason  was.  You  know  very  well 
that  I  am  equal  to  any  trial,  any  sacrifice,  day  after 
to-morrow;  but  when  it  comes  to-day  it's  another 
thing.  As  long  as  this  crisis  decently  kept  its 
distance,  I  could  look  at  it  with  an  impartial  eye ; 
but  now  that  it  seems  at  hand,  I  find  that,  while  my 
reason  is  still  acquiescent,  my  nerves  are  disposed  to 
— excuse  the  phrase — kick.  I  ask  myself,  what 
have  I  done  nothing  for,  all  my  life,  and  lived  as  a 
gentleman  should,  upon  the  earnings  of  somebody 
else,  in  the  possession  of  every  polite  taste  and  feel 
ing  that  adorns  leisure,  if  I'm  to  come  to  this  at 
last  1  And  I  find  no  satisfactory  answer.  I  say  to 
myself  that  I  might  as  well  have  yielded  to  the 
pressure  all  round  me,  and  gone  to  work,  as  Tom 
has." 

Mrs.  Corey  looked  at  him  forlornly,  divining  the 
core  of  real  repugnance  that  existed  in  his  self-satire. 

"  I  assure  you,  my  dear,"  he  continued,  "  that  the 
recollection  of  what  I  suffered  from  the  Laphams  at 
that  dinner  of  yours  is  an  anguish  still.  It  wasn't 
their  behaviour, — they  behaved  well  enough — or  ill 


378  THE  RISE  OP 

enough ;  but  their  conversation  was  terrible.  Mrs. 
Lapham's  range  was  strictly  domestic ;  and  when 
the  Colonel  got  me  in  the  library,  he  poured  mineral 
paint  all  over  me,  till  I  could  have  been  safely 
warranted  not  to  crack  or  scale  in  any  climate.  I 
suppose  we  shall  have  to  see  a  good  deal  of  them. 
They  will  probably  come  here  every  Sunday  night 
to  tea.  It's  a  perspective  without  a  vanishing- 
point." 

"  It  may  not  be  so  bad,  after  all,"  said  his  wife ; 
and  she  suggested  for  his  consolation  that  he  knew 
very  little  about  the  Laphams  yet 

He  assented  to  the  fact.  "  I  know  very  little 
about  them,  and  about  my  other  fellow-beings.  I 
dare  say  that  I  should  like  the  Laphams  better  if  I 
knew  them  better.  But  in  any  case,  I  resign  my 
self.  And  we  must  keep  in  view  the  fact  that  this 
is  mainly  Tom's  affair,  and  if  his  affections  have 
regulated  it  to  his  satisfaction,  we  must  be  content." 

"  Oh  yes,"  sighed  Mrs.  Corey.  "  And  perhaps  it 
won't  turn  out  so  badly.  It's  a  great  comfort  to 
know  that  you  feel  just  as  I  do  about  it." 

"  I  do,"  said  her  husband,  "  and  more  too." 

It  was  she  and  her  daughters  who  would  be 
chiefly  annoyed  by  the  Lapham  connection  ;  she 
knew  that.  But  she  had  to  begin  to  bear  the 
burden  by  helping  her  husband  to  bear  his  light 
share  of  it.  To  see  him  so  depressed  dismayed  her, 
and  she  might  well  have  reproached  him  more 
sharply  than  she  did  for  showing  so  much  indiffer 
ence,  when  she  was  so  anxious,  at  first.  But  that 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  379 

would  not  have  served  any  good  end  now.  She 
even  answered  him  patiently  when  he  asked  her, 
"  What  did  you  say  to  Tom  when  he  told  you  it 
was  the  other  one  1 " 

11  What  could  I  say  ?  I  could  do  nothing,  but 
try  to  take  back  what  I  had  said  against  her." 

"  Yes,  you  had  quite  enough  to  do,  I  suppose. 
It 's  an  awkward  business.  If  it  had  been  the  pretty 
one,  her  beauty  would  have  been  our  excuse.  But 
the  plain  one — what  do  you  suppose  attracted  him 
in  her?" 

Mrs.  Corey  sighed  at  the  futility  of  the  question. 
"  Perhaps  I  did  her  injustice.  I  only  saw  her  a  few 
moments.  Perhaps  I  got  a  false  impression.  I 
don't  think  she 's  lacking  in  sense,  and  that 's  a  great 
thing.  She  '11  be  quick  to  see  that  we  don't  mean 
unkindness,  and  can't,  by  anything  we  say  or  do, 
when  she 's  Tom's  wife."  She  pronounced  the  dis 
tasteful  word  with  courage,  and  went  on  :  "  The 
pretty  one  might  not  have  been  able  to  see  that. 
She  might  have  got  it  into  her  head  that  we  were 
looking  down  on  her ;  and  those  insipid  people  are 
terribly  stubborn.  We  can  come  to  some  under 
standing  with  this  one ;  I  'm  sure  of  that."  She 
ended  by  declaring  that  it  was  now  their  duty  to 
help  Tom  out  of  his  terrible  predicament. 

"  Oh,  even  the  Lapham  cloud  has  a  silver  lining," 
said  Corey.  "  In  fact,  it  seems  really  to  have  all 
turned  out  for  the  best,  Anna ;  though  it 's  rather 
curious  to  find  you  the  champion  of  the  Lapham 
side,  at  last.  Confess,  now,  that  the  right  girl  has 


380  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

secretly  been  your  choice  all  along,  and  that  while 
you  sympathise  with  the  wrong  one,  you  rejoice  in 
the  tenacity  with  which  the  right  one  is  clinging  to 
her  own  ! "  He  added  with  final  seriousness,  "  It 's 
just  that  she  should,  and,  so  far  as  I  understand  the 
case,  I  respect  her  for  it." 

"  Oh  yes,"  sighed  Mrs.  Corey.  "  It 's  natural, 
and  it 's  right."  But  she  added,  "  I  suppose  they  're 
glad  of  him  on  any  terms." 

"  That  is  what  I  have  been  taught  to  believe," 
said  her  husband.  "  When  shall  we  see  our 
daughter-in-law  elect  ?  I  find  myself  rather  im 
patient  to  have  that  part  of  it  over." 

Mrs.  Corey  hesitated.  "  Tom  thinks  we  had 
better  not  call,  just  yet." 

"  She  has  told  him  of  your  terrible  behaviour 
when  you  called  before  1 " 

"  No,  Bromfield !  She  couldn't  be  so  vulgar  as 
that?" 

"But  anything  short  of  it?" 


XXI. 

LAPHAM  was  gone  a  fortnight.  He  was  in  a 
sullen  humour  when  he  came  back,  and  kept  him 
self  shut  close  within  his  own  den  at  the  office  the 
first  day.  He  entered  it  in  the  morning  without  a 
word  to  his  clerks  as  he  passed  through  the  outer 
room,  and  he  made  no  sign  throughout  the  forenoon, 
except  to  strike  savagely  on  his  desk-bell  from  time 
to  time,  and  send  out  to  Walker  for  some  book  of 
accounts  or  a  letter-file.  His  boy  confidentially 
reported  to  Walker  that  the  old  man  seemed  to 
have  got  a  lot  of  papers  round;  and  at  lunch  the 
book-keeper  said  to  Corey,  at  the  little  table  which 
they  had  taken  in  a  corner  together,  in  default  of 
seats  at  the  counter,  "Well,  sir,  I  guess  there's  a 
cold  wave  coming." 

Corey  looked  up  innocently,  and  said,  "  I  haven't 
read  the  weather  report." 

"Yes,  sir,"  Walker  continued,  "it's  coming. 
Areas  of  rain  along  the  whole  coast,  and  increased 
pressure  in  the  region  of  the  private  office.  Storm- 
signals  up  at  the  old  man's  door  now." 

Corey  perceived  that  he  was  speaking  figuratively, 
and  that  his  meteorology  was  entirely  personal  to 

381 


382  THE  RISE  OF 

Lapham.  "  What  do  you  mean  ? "  he  asked,  with 
out  vivid  interest  in  the  allegory,  his  mind  being 
full  of  his  own  tragi-comedy. 

"  Why,  just  this  :  I  guess  the  old  man  's  takin'  in 
sail.  And  I  guess  he 's  got  to.  As  I  told  you  the 
first  time  we  talked  about  him,  there  don't  any 
one  know  one-quarter  as  much  about  the  old  man's 
business  as  the  old  man  does  himself;  and  I  ain't 
betraying  any  confidence  when  I  say  that  I  guess  that 
old  partner  of  his  has  got  pretty  deep  into  his  books. 
I  guess  he 's  over  head  and  ears  in  'em,  and  the  old 
man 's  gone  in  after  him,  and  he 's  got  a  drownin' 
man's  grip  round  his  neck.  There  seems  to  be  a  kind 
of  a  lull — kind  of  a  dead  calm,  /  call  it — in  the  paint 
market  just  now;  and  then  again  a  ten-huridred- 
thousand-dollar  man  don't  build  a  hundred-thousand- 
dollar  house  without  feeling  the  drain,  unless  there 's 
a  regular  boom.  And  just  now  there  ain't  any  boom 
at  all.  Oh,  I  don't  say  but  what  the  old  man 's  got 
anchors  to  windward ;  guess  he  has ;  but  if  he  '& 
goin'  to  leave  me  his  money,  I  wish  he  'd  left  it  six 
weeks  ago.  Yes,  sir,  I  guess  there 's  a  cold  wave 
comin' ;  but  you  can't  generally  'most  always  tell,  as  a 
usual  thing,  where  the  old  man  's  concerned,  and  it 's 
only  a  guess."  Walker  began  to  feed  in  his  breaded 
chop  with  the  same  nervous  excitement  with  which 
he  abandoned  himself  to  the  slangy  and  figurative 
excesses  of  his  talks.  Corey  had  listened  with  a 
miserable  curiosity  and  compassion  up  to  a  certain 
moment,  when  a  broad  light  of  hope  flashed  upon 
him.  It  came  from  Lapham 's  potential  ruin ;  and 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  383 

the  way  out  of  the  labyrinth  that  had  hitherto 
seemed  so  hopeless  was  clear  enough,  if  another's 
disaster  would  befriend  him,  and  give  him  the 
opportunity  to  prove  the  unselfishness  of  his  con 
stancy.  He  thought  of  the  sum  of  money  that  was 
his  own,  and  that  he  might  offer  to  lend,  or  practi 
cally  give,  if  the  time  came ;  and  with  his  crude 
hopes  and  purposes  formlessly  exulting  in  his  heart, 
he  kept  on  listening  with  an  unchanged  countenance. 

Walker  could  not  rest  till  he  had  developed  the 
whole  situation,  so  far  as  he  knew  it.  "  Look  at  the 
stock  we  've  got  on  hand.  There 's  going  to  be  an 
awful  shrinkage  on  that,  now !  And  when  every 
body  is  shutting  down,  or  running  half-time,  the 
works  up  at  Lapham  are  going  full  chip,  just  the 
same  as  ever.  Well,  it 's  his  pride.  I  don't  say  but 
what  it 's  a  good  sort  of  pride,  but  he  likes  to  make 
his  brags  that  the  fire 's  never  been  out  in  the  works 
since  they  started,  and  that  no  man's  work  or  wages 
has  ever  been  cut  down  yet  at  Lapham,  it  don't  matter 
what  the  times  are.  Of  course,"  explained  Walker, 
"  I  shouldn't  talk  so  to  everybody ;  don't  know  as  I 
should  talk  so  to  anybody  but  you,  Mr.  Corey." 

"  Of  course,"  assented  Corey. 

"  Little  off  your  feed  to-day,"  said  Walker,  glanc 
ing  at  Corey's  plate. 

"  I  got  up  with  a  headache." 

"  Well,  sir,  if  you  're  like  me  you  '11  carry  it  round 
all  day,  then.  I  don't  know  a  much  meaner  thing 
than  a  headache — unless  it 's  earache,  or  toothache, 
or  some  other  kind  of  ache.  I'm  pretty  hard  to 


384  THE  RISE  OF 

suit,  when  it  comes  to  diseases.  Notice  how  yellow 
the  old  man  looked  when  he  came  in  this  morning  1 
I  don't  like  to  see  a  man  of  his  build  look  yellow — 
much." 

About  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  the  dust- 
coloured  face  of  Rogers,  now  familiar  to  Lapham's 
clerks,  showed  itself  among  them.  "Has  Colonel 
Lapham  returned  yet  1"  he  asked,  in  his  dry,  wooden 
tones,  of  Lapham's  boy. 

"  Yes,  he 's  in  his  office,"  said  the  boy ;  and  as 
Rogers  advanced,  he  rose  and  added,  "  I  don't  know 
as  you  can  see  him  to-day.  His  orders  are  not  to 
let  anybody  in." 

"  Oh,  indeed  !  "  said  Rogers ;  "  I  think  he  will 
see  me  !  "  and  he  pressed  forward. 

"  Well,  I  '11  have  to  ask,"  returned  the  boy  ;  and 
hastily  preceding  Rogers,  he  put  his  head  in  at 
Lapham's  door,  and  then  withdrew  it.  "  Please  to 
sit  down,"  he  said  ;  "  he  '11  see  you  pretty  soon  ;"  and, 
with  an  air  of  some  surprise,  Rogers  obeyed.  His 
sere,  dull-brown  whiskers  and  the  moustache  clos 
ing  over  both  lips  were  incongruously  and  illogically 
clerical  in  effect,  and  the  effect  was  heightened  for 
no  reason  by  the  parchment  texture  of  his  skin; 
the  baldness  extending  to  the  crown  of  his  head 
was  like  a  baldness  made  up  for  the  stage.  What 
his  face  expressed  chiefly  was  a  bland  and  beneficent 
caution.  Here,  you  must  have  said  to  yourself,  is 
a  man  of  just,  sober,  and  prudent  views,  fixed  pur 
poses,  and  the  good  citizenship  that  avoids  debt 
and  hazard  of  every  kind. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  385 

"  What  do  you  want  ? "  asked  Lapham,  wheeling 
round  in  his  swivel-chair  as  Kogers  entered  his 
room,  and  pushing  the  door  shut  with  his  foot, 
without  rising. 

Rogers  took  the  chair  that  was  not  offered  him, 
and  sat  with  his  hat-brim  on  his  knees,  and  its 
crown  pointed  towards  Lapham.  "  I  want  to  know 
what  you  are  going  to  do,"  he  answered  with  suf 
ficient  self-possession. 

"  I  '11  tell  you,  first,  what  I  've  done"  said  Lapham. 
"  I  've  been  to  Dubuque,  and  I  've  found  out  all 
about  that  milling  property  you  turned  in  on  me. 
Did  you  know  that  the  G.  L.  &  P.  had  leased  the 
R  Y.  &  X.  ?" 

"I  some  suspected  that  it  might." 

"  Did  you  know  it  when  you  turned  the  property 
in  on  me  ?  Did  you  know  that  the  G-.  L.  &  P. 
wanted  to  buy  the  mills  ? " 

"  I  presumed  the  road  would  give  a  fair  price  for 
them,"  said  Rogers,  winking  his  eyes  in  outward 
expression  of  inwardly  blinking  the  point. 

"  You  lie,"  said  Lapham,  as  quietly  as  if  correct 
ing  him  in  a  slight  error;  and  Rogers  took  the 
word  with  equal  sang  froid.  "  You  knew  the  road 
wouldn't  give  a  fair  price  for  the  mills.  You  knew 
it  would  give  what  it  chose,  and  that  I  couldn't 
help  myself,  when  you  let  me  take  them.  You  're 
a  thief,  Milton  K.  Rogers,  and  you  stole  money  I 
lent  you."  Rogers  sat  listening,  as  if  respectfully 
considering  the  statements.  "You  knew  how  I 
felt  about  that  old  matter — or  my  wife  did ;  and 
2B 


386  THE  RISE  OF 

that  I  wanted  to  make  it  up  to  you,  if  you  felt  any 
way  badly  used.  And  you  took  advantage  of  it. 
You  've  got  money  out  of  me,  in  the  first  place,  on 
securities  that  wan't  worth  thirty-five  cents  on  the 
dollar,  and  you  've  let  me  in  for  this  thing,  and  that 
thing,  and  you've  bled  me  every  time.  And  all 
I  've  got  to  show  for  it  is  a  milling  property  on  a 
line  of  road  that  can  squeeze  me,  whenever  it  wants 
to,  as  dry  as  it  pleases.  And  you  want  to  know 
what  I  'm  going  to  do  ?  I  'm  going  to  squeeze  you: 
I  'm  going  to  sell  these  collaterals  of  yours," — he 
touched  a  bundle  of  papers  among  others  that  lit 
tered  his  desk, — "  and  I  'm  going  to  let  the  mills  go 
for  what  they  '11  fetch.  /  ain't  going  to  fight  the 
G.  L.  &  P." 

Lapham  wheeled  about  in  his  chair  and  turned 
his  burly  back  on  his  visitor,  who  sat  wholly  un 
moved. 

"There  are  some  parties,"  he  began,  with  a  dry 
tranquillity  ignoring  Lapham's  words,  as  if  they  had 
been  an  outburst  against  some  third  person,  who 
probably  merited  them,  but  in  whom  he  was  so 
little  interested  that  he  had  been  obliged  to  use 
patience  in  listening  to  his  condemnation, — "there 
are  some  English  parties  who  have  been  making 
inquiries  in  regard  to  those  mills." 

"I  guess  you're  lying,  Rogers,"  said  Lapham, 
without  looking  round. 

"  Well,  all  that  I  have  to  ask  is  that  you  will  not 
act  hastily." 

"I     see    you    don't     think    I'm    in    earnest!" 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  387 

cried  Lapham,  facing  fiercely  about,  "  You  think 
I  'm  fooling,  do  you  1 "  He  struck  his  bell,  and 
"  William,"  he  ordered  the  boy  who  answered  it, 
and  who  stood  waiting  while  he  dashed  off  a  note 
to  the  brokers  and  enclosed  it  with  the  bundle 
of  securities  in  a  large  envelope,  "take  these 
down  to  Gallop  &  Paddock's,  in  State  Street, 
right  away.  Now  go ! "  he  said  to  Rogers,  when 
the  boy  had  closed  the  door  after  him;  and  he 
turned  once  more  to  his  desk. 

Rogers  rose  from  his  chair,  and  stood  with  his 
hat  in  his  hand.  He  was  not  merely  dispassionate 
in  his  attitude  and  expression,  he  was  impartial. 
He  wore  the  air  of  a  man  who  was  ready  to  return 
to  business  whenever  the  wayward  mood  of  his 
interlocutor  permitted.  "Then  I  understand,"  he 
said,  "  that  you  will  take  no  action  in  regard  to  the 
mills  till  I  have  seen  the  parties  I  speak  of." 

Lapham  faced  about  once  more,  and  sat  looking 
up  into  the  visage  of  Rogers  in  silence.  "  I  wonder 
what  you  're  up  to,"  he  said  at  last ;  "I  should  like 
to  know."  But  as  Rogers  made  no  sign  of  gratify 
ing  his  curiosity,  and  treated  this  last  remark  of 
Lapham's  as  of  the  irrelevance  of  all  the  rest,  he  said, 
frowning,  "  You  bring  me  a  party  that  will  give  me 
enough  for  those  mills  to  clear  me  of  you,  and  I  '11 
talk  to  you.  But  don't  you  come  here  with  any 
man  of  straw.  And  I'll  give  you  just  twenty-four 
hours  to  prove  yourself  a  swindler  again." 

Once  more  Lapham  turned  his  back,  and  Rogers, 
after  looking  thoughtfully  into  his  hat  a  moment, 


388  THE  BJSE  OF 

cleared  his  throat,  and  quietly  withdrew,  maintain 
ing  to  the  last  his  unprejudiced  demeanour. 

Lapham  was  not  again  heard  from,  as  Walker 
phrased  it,  during  the  afternoon,  except  when  the 
last  mail  was  taken  in  to  him  ;  then  the  sound  of 
rending  envelopes,  mixed  with  that  of  what  seemed 
suppressed  swearing,  penetrated  to  the  outer  office. 
Somewhat  earlier  than  the  usual  hour  for  closing,  he 
appeared  there  with  his  hat  on  and  his  overcoat 
buttoned  about  him.  He  said  briefly  to  his  boy, 
"  William,  I  shan't  be  back  again  this  afternoon," 
and  then  went  to  Miss  Dewey  and  left  a  number 
of  letters  on  her  table  to  be  copied,  and  went  out. 
Nothing  had  been  said,  but  a  sense  of  trouble  subtly 
diffused  itself  through  those  who  saw  him  go  out. 

That  evening  as  he  sat  down  with  his  wife  alone 
at  tea,  he  asked,  "  Ain't  Pen  coming  to  supper  1 " 

"  No,  she  ain't,"  said  his  wife.  "  I  don't  know  as 
I  like  the  way  she 's  going  on,  any  too  well.  I  'm 
afraid,  if  she  keeps  on,  she  '11  be  down  sick.  She 's 
got  deeper  feelings  than  Irene." 

Lapham  said  nothing,  but  having  helped  himself 
to  the  abundance  of  his  table  in  his  usual  fashion, 
he  sat  and  looked  at  his  plate  with  an  indifference 
that  did  not  escape  the  notice  of  his  wife.  "  What 's 
the  matter  with  you  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Nothing.     I  haven't  got  any  appetite." 

"  What 's  the  matter  ? "  she  persisted. 

"  Trouble 's  the  matter ;  bad  luck  and  lots  of  it 's 
the  matter,"  said  Lapham.  "  I  haven't  ever  hid 
anything  from  you,  Persis,  when  you  asked  me,  and 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  -  389 

it 's  too  late  to  begin  now.  I  'm  in  a  fix.  I  '11  tell 
you  what  kind  of  a  fix,  if  you  think  it  '11  do  you  any 
good ;  but  I  guess  you  '11  be  satisfied  to  know  that 
it's  a  fix." 

"  How  much  of  a  one  1 "  she  asked  with  a  look  of 
grave,  steady  courage  in  her  eyes. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  can  tell,  just  yet,"  said 
Lapham,  avoiding  this  look.  "  Things  have  been 
dull  all  the  fall,  but  I  thought  they  'd  brisk  up  come 
winter.  They  haven't.  There  have  been  a  lot  of 
failures,  and  some  of  'em  owed  me,  and  some  of  'em 
had  me  on  their  paper  ;  and "  Lapham  stopped. 

"  And  what  1 "  prompted  his  wife. 

He  hesitated  before  he  added,  "  And  then — 
Rogers." 

"  I  'm  to  blame  for  that,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  I 
forced  you  to  it." 

"  No  ;  I  was  as  willing  to  go  into  it  as  what  you 
were,"  answered  Lapham.  "  I  don't  want  to  blame 
anybody." 

Mrs.  Lapham  had  a  woman's  passion  for  fixing 
responsibility  ;  she  could  not  help  saying,  as  soon  as 
acquitted,  "  I  warned  you  against  him,  Silas.  I  told 
you  not  to  let  him  get  in  any  deeper  with  you." 

"  Oh  yes.  I  had  to  help  him  to  try  to  get  my 
money  back.  I  might  as  well  poured  water  into  a 
sieve.  And  now "  Lapham  stopped. 

"  Don't  be  afraid  to  speak  out  to  me,  Silas  Lap- 
ham.  If  it  comes  to  the  worst,  I  want  to  know  it 
— I  've  got  to  know  it.  What  did  I  ever  care  for 
the  money  1  I  've  had  a  happy  home  with  you  ever 


390  THE  RISE  OF 

since  we  were  married,  and  I  guess  I  shall  have  as 
long  as  you  live,  whether  we  go  on  to  the  Back  Bay, 
or  go  back  to  the  old  house  at  Lapham.  I  know 
who's  to  blame,  and  I  blame  myself.  It  was  my 
forcing  Rogers  on  to  you."  She  came  back  to  this, 
with  her  helpless  longing,  inbred  in  all  Puritan  souls, 
to  have  some  one  specifically  suffer  for  the  evil  in 
the  world,  even  if  it  must  be  herself. 

"  It  hasn't  come  to  the  worst  yet,  Persis,"  said 
her  husband.  "  But  I  shall  have  to  hold  up  on 
the  new  house  a  little  while,  till  I  can  see  where  I 
am." 

"  I  shouldn't  care  if  we  had  to  sell  it,"  cried  his 
wife,  in  passionate  self-condemnation.  "  I  should 
be  glad  if  we  had  to,  as  far  as  I  'm  concerned." 

"  I  shouldn't,"  said  Lapham. 

"  I  know  ! "  said  his  wife ;  and  she  remembered 
ruefully  how  his  heart  was  set  on  it. 

He  sat  musing.  "  Well,  I  guess  it 's  going  to 
come  out  all  right  in  the  end.  Or,  if  it  ain't,"  he 
sighed,  "we  can't  help  it.  May  be  Pen  needn't 
worry  so  much  about  Corey,  after  all,"  he  continued, 
with  a  bitter  irony  new  to  him.  "  It 's  an  ill  wind 
that  blows  nobody  good.  And  there's  a  chance," 
he  ended,  with  a  still  bitterer  laugh,  "  that  Rogers 
will  come  to  time,  after  all." 

"  I  don't  believe  it ! "  exclaimed  Mrs.  Lapham, 
with  a  gleam  of  hope  in  her  eyes.  "  What  chance  1 " 

"  One  in  ten  million,"  said  Lapham  ;  and  her  face 
fell  again.  "  He  says  there  are  some  English  parties 
after  him  to  buy  these  mills." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  391 

"  Well  1 " 

"  Well,  I  gave  him  twenty -four  hours  to  prove 
himself  a  liar." 

"  You  don't  believe  there  are  any  such  parties  ? " 

"  Not  in  this  world." 

"  But  if  there  were  ! " 

"  Well,  if  there  were,  Persis But  pshaw  ! " 

"  No,  no  ! "  she  pleaded  eagerly.  "  It  don't  seem 
as  if  he  could  be  such  a  villain.  What  would  be  the 
use  of  his  pretending  1  If  he  brought  the  parties  to 
you " 

"  Well,"  said  Lapham  scornfully,  "  I  'd  let  them 
have  the  mills  at  the  price  Rogers  turned  'em  in  on 
me  at.  I  don't  want  to  make  anything  on  'em.  But 
guess  I  shall  hear  from  the  G.  L.  &  P.  first  And 
when  they  make  their  offer,  I  guess  I  '11  have  to 
accept  it,  whatever  it  is.  I  don't  think  they'll 
have  a  great  many  competitors." 

Mrs.  Lapham  could  not  give  up  her  hope.  "  If 
you  could  get  your  price  from  those  English  parties 
before  they  knew  that  the  G.  L.  &  P.  wanted  to 
buy  the  mills,  would  it  let  you  out  with  Rogers  1 " 

"  Just  about,"  said  Lapham. 

"Then  I  know  he'll  move  heaven  and  earth  to 
bring  it  about.  I  know  you  won't  be  allowed  to 
suffer  for  doing  him  a  kindness,  Silas.  He  can't  be 
so  ungrateful !  Why,  why  should  he  pretend  to  have 
any  such  parties  in  view  when  he  hasn't?  Don't 
you  be  down-hearted,  Si.  You  '11  see  that  he  '11  be 
round  with  them  to-morrow." 

Lapham  laughed,  but  she  urged  so  many  reasons 


392  THE  RISE  OF 

for  her  belief  in  Rogers  that  Lapham  began  to  re 
kindle  his  own  faith  a  little.  He  ended  by  asking 
for  a  hot  cup  of  tea ;  and  Mrs.  Lapham  sent  the  pot 
out  and  had  a  fresh  one  steeped  for  him.  After 
that  he  made  a  hearty  supper  in  the  revulsion  from 
his  entire  despair ;  and  they  fell  asleep  that  night 
talking  hopefully  of  his  affairs,  which  he  laid  before 
her  fully,  as  he  used  to  do  when  he  first  started  in 
business.  That  brought  the  old  times  back,  and 
he  said :  "  If  this  had  happened  then,  I  shouldn't 
have  cared  much.  I  was  young  then,  and  I  wasn't 
afraid  of  anything.  But  I  -noticed  that  after  I 
passed  fifty  I  began  to  get  scared  easier.  I  don't 
believe  I  could  pick  up,  now,  from  a  regular  knock 
down." 

"  Pshaw !  You  scared,  Silas  Lapham  1  "  cried  hia 
wife  proudly.  "  I  should  like  to  see  the  thing  that 
ever  scared  you ;  or  the  knockdown  that  you  couldn't 
pick  up  from  ! " 

"  Is  that  so,  Persia  ? "  he  asked,  with  the  joy  her 
courage  gave  him. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  she  called  to  him,  in  a 
voice  which  the  darkness  rendered  still  more  deeply 
troubled  :  "  Are  you  awake,  Silas  1 " 

"Yes;  I'm  awake." 

"  I  've  been  thinking  about  those  English  parties, 
Si " 

"So'veL" 

"  And  I  can't  make  it  out  but  what  you  'd  be  just 
as  bad  as  Rogers,  every  bit  and  grain,  if  you  were 
to  let  them  have  the  mills " 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  393 

•  "  And  not  tell  'em  what  the  chances  were  with  the 
G.  L.  &  P.  1  I  thought  of  that,  and  you  needn't  be 
afraid." 

She  began  to  bewail  herself,  and  to  sob  convul 
sively:  "0  Silas!  0  Silas!"  Heaven  knows  in 
what  measure  the  passion  of  her  soul  was  mixed 
with  pride  in  her  husband's  honesty,  relief  from  an 
apprehended  struggle,  and  pity  for  him. 

"  Hush,  hush,  Persis !"  he  besought  her.  "  You  '11 
wake  Pen  if  you  keep  on  that  way.  Don't  cry  any 
more  !  You  mustn't." 

"Oh,  let  me  cry,  Silas!  It'll  help  me.  I  shall 
be  all  right  in  a  minute.  Don't  you  mind."  She 
sobbed  herself  quiet.  "  It  does  seem  too  hard,"  she 
said,  when  she  could  speak  again,  "  that  you  have 
to  give  up  this  chance  when  Providence  had  fairly 
raised  it  up  for  you." 

"  I  guess  it  wan't  Providence  raised  it  up,"  said 
Lapham.  "  Any  rate,  it 's  got  to  go.  Most  likely 
Rogers  was  lyin',  and  there  ain't  any  such  parties ; 
but  if  there  were,  they  couldn't  have  the  mills 
from  me  without  the  whole  story.  Don't  you  be 
troubled,  Persis.  I'm  going  to  pull  through  all 
right." 

"  Oh,  I  ain't  afraid.  I  don't  suppose  but  what 
there's  plenty  would  help  you,  if  they  knew  you 
needed  it,  Si." 

"  They  would  if  they  knew  I  didn't  need  it,"  said 
Lapham  sardonically. 

"  Did  you  tell  Bill  how  you  stood  ? " 

"  No,  I  couldn't  bear  to.     I  've  been  the  rich  one 


394  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

so  long,  that  I  couldn't  bring  myself  to  own  up  that 
I  was  in  danger." 

"  Yes." 

"  Besides,  it  didn't  look  so  ugly  till  to-day.  But 
I  guess  we  shan't  let  ugly  looks  scare  us." 

"No." 


XXII. 

THE  morning  postman  brought  Mrs.  Lapham  a 
letter  from  Irene,  which  was  chiefly  significant  be 
cause  it  made  no  reference  whatever  to  the  writer  or 
her  state  of  mind.  It  gave  the  news  of  her  uncle's 
family ;  it  told  of  their  kindness  to  her  ;  her  cousin 
AVill  was  going  to  take  her  and  his  sisters  ice-boating 
on  the  river,  when  it  froze. 

By  the  time  this  letter  came,  Lapham  had  gone  to 
his  business,  and  the  mother  carried  it  to  Penelope 
to  talk  over.  "  What  do  you  make  out  of  it  ? "  she 
asked ;  and  without  waiting  to  be  answered  she 
said,  "I  don't  know  as  I  believe  in  cousins  marry 
ing,  a  great  deal ;  but  if  Irene  and  Will  were  to  fix 
it  up  between  'em "  She  looked  vaguely  at  Pene 
lope. 

"  It  wouldn't  make  any  difference  as  far  as  I  was 
concerned,"  replied  the  girl  listlessly. 

Mrs.  Lapham  lost  her  patience. 

"  Well,  then,  I  '11  tell  you  what,  Penelope  ! "  she 
exclaimed.  "Perhaps  it'll  make  a  difference  to 
you  if  you  know  that  your  father 's  in  real  trouble. 
He 's  harassed  to  death,  and  he  was  awake  half  the 
night,  talking  about  it.  That  abominable  old  Rogers 

395 


396  THE  RISE  OF 

has  got  a  lot  of  money  away  from  him  ;  and  he  'a 
lost  by  others  that  he  'a  helped," — Mrs.  Lapham  put 
it  in  this  way  because  she  had  no  time  to  be  explicit, 
— "  and  I  want  you  should  come  out  of  your  room 
now,  and  try  to  be  of  some  help  and  comfort  to 
him  when  he  comes  home  to-night.  I  guess  Irene 
wouldn't  mope  round  much,  if  she  was  here,"  she 
could  not  help  adding. 

The  girl  lifted  herself  on  her  elbow.  "  What 's 
that  you  say  about  father  ? "  she  demanded  eagerly. 
"  Is  he  in  trouble  1  Is  he  going  to  lose  his  money  1 
Shall  we  have  to  stay  in  this  house  1 " 

"  We  may  be  very  glad  to  stay  in  this  house,"  said 
Mrs.  Lapham,  half  angry  with  herself  for  having 
given  cause  for  the  girl's  conjectures,  and  half  with 
the  habit  of  prosperity  in  her  child,  which  could 
conceive  no  better  of  what  adversity  was.  ''And  I 
want  you  should  get  up  and  show  that  you  Ve  got 
some  feeling  for  somebody  in  the  world  besides 
yourself." 

"  Oh,  I  '11  get  up  f  "  said  the  girl  promptly,  almost 
cheerfully. 

"  I  don't  say  it 's  as  bad  nov  as  "it  looked  a  little 
while  ago,"  said  her  mother,  conscientiously  hedging 
a  little  from  the  statement  which  she  had  based 
rather  upon  her  feelings  than  her  facts.  "  Your 
father  thinks  he'll  pull  through  all  right,  and  I 
don't  know  but  what  he  will  But  I  want  you 
should  see  if  you  can't  do  something  to  cheer  him 
up  and  keep  him  from  getting  so  perfectly  down 
hearted  as  he  seems  to  get,  under  the  load  he 's  got 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  397 

to  carry.  And  stop  thinking  about  yourself  a  while, 
and  behave  yourself  like  a  sensible  girl." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  the  girl ;  "  I  will.  You  needn't 
be  troubled  about  me  any  more." 

Before  she  left  her  room  she  wrote  a  note,  and 
when  she  came  down  she  was  dressed  to  go  out-of- 
doors  and  post  it  herself.  The  note  was  to  Corey  : — 

"Do  not  come  to  see  me  any  more  till  you  hear 
from  me.  I  have  a  reason  which  I  cannot  give  you 
now  ;  and  you  must  not  ask  what  it  is." 

All  day  she  went  about  in  a  buoyant  desperation, 
and  she  came  down  to  meet  her  father  at  supper. 

"Well,  Persis,"  he  said  scornfully,  as  he  sat  down, 
"  we  might  as  well  saved  our  good  resolutions  till 
they  were  wanted.  I  guess  those  English  parties 
have  gone  back  on  Rogers." 

"  Do  you  mean  he  didn't  come  1 " 

"  He  hadn't  come  up  to  half-past  five,"  said  Lap- 
ham. 

"  Tchk  ! "  uttered  his  wife. 

"But  I  guess  I  shall  pull  through  without  Mr. 
Rogers,"  continued  Lapham.  "  A  firm  that  I  didn't 
think  could  weather  it  is  still  afloat,  and  so  far  forth 
as  the  danger  goes  of  being  dragged  under  with  it, 
I  'm  all  right."  Penelope  came  in.  "  Hello,  Pen !  " 
cried  her  father.  "  It  ain't  often  I  meet  you  nowa 
days."  He  put  up  his  hand  as  she  passed  his  chair, 
and  pulled  her  down  and  kissed  her. 

"  No,"  she  said  ;  "  but  I  thought  I  'd  come  down 
to-night  and  cheer  you  up  a  little.  I  shall  not  talk ; 
the  sight  of  me  will  be  enough." 


398  THE  RISE  OP 

Her  father  laughed  out.  "Mother  been  telling 
you  1  Well,  I  was  pretty  blue  last  night ;  but  I 
guess  I  was  more  scared  than  hurt.  How'd  you 
like  to  go  to  the  theatre  to-night?  Sellers  at  the 
Park.  Heigh?" 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  Don't  you  think  they 
could  get  along  without  me  there  ?  " 

"  No ;  couldn't  work  it  at  all,"  cried  the  Colonel. 
"  Let 's  all  go.  Unless,"  he  added  inquiringly, 
"  there 's  somebody  coming  here  ? " 

"  There 's  nobody  coming,"  said  Penelope. 

"  Good  !  Then  we  '11  go.  Mother,  don't  you  be 
late  now." 

"  Oh,  /  shan't  keep  you  waiting,"  said  Mrs.  Lap- 
ham.  She  had  thought  of  telling  what  a  cheerful 
letter  she  had  got  from  Irene;  but  upon  the  whole  it 
seemed  better  not  to  speak  of  Irene  at  all  just  then. 
After  they  returned  from  the  theatre,  where  the 
Colonel  roared  through  the  comedy,  with  continual 
reference  of  his  pleasure  to  Penelope,  to  make  sure 
that  she  was  enjoying  it  too,  his  wife  said,  as  if  the 
whole  affair  had  been  for  the  girl's  distraction  rather 
than  his,  "  I  don't  believe  but  what  it 's  going  to 
come  out  all  right  about  the  children;"  and  then 
she  told  him  of  the  letter,  and  the  hopes  she  had 
founded  upon  it. 

.     "  Well,    perhaps   you  're   right,    Persis,"  he   con 
sented. 

"  I  haven't  seen  Pen  so  much  like  herself  since  it 
happened.  I  declare,  when  I  see  the  way  she  came 
out  to-night,  just  to  please  you,  I  don't  know  as  I 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  399 

want  you  should  get  over  all  your  troubles  right 
away." 

"  I  guess  there  '11  be  enough  to  keep  Pen  going 
for  a  while  yet,"  said  the  Colonel,  winding  up  his 
watch. 

But  for  a  time  there  was  a  relief,  which  Walker 
noted,  in  the  atmosphere  at  the  office,  and  then  came 
another  cold  wave,  slighter  than  the  first,  but  dis 
tinctly  felt  there,  and  succeeded  by  another  relief. 
It  was  like  the  winter  which  was  wearing  on  to  the 
end  of  the  year,  with  alternations  of  freezing 
weather,  and  mild  days  stretching  to  weeks,  in 
which  the  snow  and  ice  wholly  disappeared.  It  was 
none  the  less  winter,  and  none  the  less  harassing  for 
these  fluctuations,  and  Lapham  showed  in  his  face 
and  temper  the  effect  of  like  fluctuations  in  his 
affairs.  He  grew  thin  and  old,  and  both  at  home 
and  at  his  office  he  was  irascible  to  the  point  of 
offence.  In  these  days  Penelope  shared  with  her 
mother  the  burden  of  their  troubled  home,  and 
united  with  her  in  supporting  Ijie  silence  or  the 
petulance  of  the  gloomy,  secret  man  who  replaced 
the  presence  of  jolly  prosperity  there.  Lapham  had 
now  ceased  to  talk  of  his  troubles,  and  savagely 
resented  his  wife's  interference.  "  You  mind  your 
own  business,  Persis,"  he  said  one  day,  "  if  you  Ve 
got  any  ;"  and  after  that  she  left  him  mainly  to  Pene 
lope,  who  did  not  think  of  asking  him  questions. 

"  It's  pretty  hard  on  you,  Pen,"  she  said. 

"  That  makes  it  easier  for  me,"  returned  the  girl, 
who  did  not  otherwise  refer  to  her  own  trouble. 


400  THE  RISE  OF 

In  her  heart  she  had  wondered  a  little  at  the  abso 
lute  obedience  of  Corey,  who  had  made  no  sign  since 
receiving  her  note.  She  would  have  liked  to  ask 
her  father  if  Corey  was  sick  ;  she  would  have  liked 
him  to  ask  her  why  Corey  did  not  come  any  more. 
Her  mother  went  on — • 

"  I  don't  believe  your  father  knows  where  he  stands. 
He  works  away  at  those  papers  he  brings  home  here 
at  night,  as  if  he  didn't  half  know  what  he  was  about. 
He  always  did  have  that  close  streak  in  him,  and  I 
don't  suppose  but  what  he  's  been  going  into  things 
he  don't  want  anybody  else  to  know  about,  and  he 's 
kept  these  accounts  of  his  own." 

Sometimes  he  gave  Penelope  figures  to  work  at, 
which  he  would  not  submit  to  his  wife's  nimbler 
arithmetic.  Then  she  went  to  bed  and  left  them 
sitting  up  till  midnight,  struggling  with  problems  in 
which  they  were  both  weak.  But  she  could  see  that 
the  girl  was  a  comfort  to  her  father,  and  that  his 
troubles  were  a  defence  and  shelter  to  her.  Some 
nights  she  could  hear  them  going  out  together,  and 
then  she  lay  awake  for  their  return  from  their  long 
walk.  When  the  hour  or  day  of  respite  came  again, 
the  home  felt  it  first.  Lapham  wanted  to  know 
what  the  news  from  Irene  was ;  he  joined  his  wife 
in  all  her  cheerful  speculations,  and  tried  to  make 
her  amends  for  his  sullen  reticence  and  irritability. 
Irene  was  staying  on  at  Dubuque.  There  came  a 
letter  from  her,  saying  that  her  uncle's  people  wanted 
her  to  spend  the  winter  there.  "  Well,  let  her," 
said  Lapham.  "It'll  be  the  best  thing  for  her." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  401 

Lapham  himself  had  letters  from  his  brother  at 
frequent  intervals.  His  brother  was  watching  the 
G.  L.  &  P.,  which  as  yet  had  made  no  offer  for 
the  mills.  Once,  when  one  of  these  letters  came,  he 
submitted  to  his  wife  whether,  in  the  absence  of 
any  positive  information  that  the  road  wanted 
the  property,  he  might  not,  with  a  good  conscience, 
dispose  of  it  to  the  best  advantage  to  anybody 
who  came  along. 

She  looked  wistfully  at  him;  it  was  on  the  rise 
from  a  season  of  deep  depression  with  him.  "  No, 
Si,"  she  said ;  "  I  don't  see  how  you  could  do 
that." 

He  did  not  assent  and  submit,  as  he  had  done  at 
first,  but  began  to  rail  at  the  unpracticality  of  women ; 
and  then  he  shut  some  papers  he  had  been  looking 
over  into  his  desk,  and  flung  out  of  the  room. 

One  of  the  papers  had  slipped  through  the  crevice 
of  the  lid,  and  lay  upon  the  floor.  Mrs.  Lapham  kept 
on  at  her  sewing,  but  after  a  while  she  picked  the 
paper  up  to  lay  it  on  the  desk.  Then  she  glanced  at 
it,  and  saw  that  it  was  a  long  column  of  dates  and 
figures,  recording  successive  sums,  never  large  ones, 
paid  regularly  to  "  "Wrn.  M."  The  dates  covered  a 
year,  and  the  sum  amounted  at  least  to  several  hun 
dreds. 

Mrs.  Lapham  laid  the  paper  down  on  the  desk, 
and  then  she  took  it  up  again  and  put  it  into  her 
work-basket,  meaning  to  give  it  to  him.  When  he 
came  in  she  saw  him  looking  absent-mindedly  about 
for  something,  and  then  going  to  work  upon  his 
2c 


402  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

papers,  apparently  without  it.  She  thought  she 
would  wait  till  he  missed  it  definitely,  and  then  give 
him  the  scrap  she  had  picked  up.  It  lay  in  her 
basket,  and  after  some  days  it  found  its  way  under 
the  work  in  it,  and  she  forgot  it. 


XXIII. 

SINCE  New  Year's  there  had  scarcely  been  a  mild 
day,  and  the  streets  were  full  of  snow,  growing  foul 
under  the  city  feet  and  hoofs,  and  renewing  its  purity 
from  the  skies  with  repeated  falls,  which  in  turn  lost 
their  whiteness,  beaten  down,  and  beaten  black  and 
hard  into  a  solid  bed  like  iron.  The  sleighing  was 
incomparable,  and  the  air  was  full  of  the  din  of 
bells ;  but  Lapham's  turnout  was  not  of  those  that 
thronged  the  Brighton  road  every  afternoon ;  the 
man  at  the  livery-stable  sent  him  word  that  the 
mare's  legs  were  swelling. 

He  and  Corey  had  little  to  do  with  each  other. 
He  did  not  know  how  Penelope  had  arranged  it  with 
Corey  ;  his  wife  said  she  knew  no  more  than  he  did, 
and  he  did  not  like  to  ask  the  girl  herself,  especially 
as  Corey  no  longer  came  to  the  house.  He  saw  that 
she  was  cheerfuller  than  she  had  been,  and  helpfuller 
with  him  and  her  mother.  Now  and  then  Laphani 
opened  his  troubled  soul  to  her  a  little,  letting  his 
thought  break  into  speech  without  preamble  or  con 
clusion.  Once  he  said — 

"  Pen,  I  presume  you  know  I  'm  in  trouble." 

403 


404  THE  RISE  OF 

"  We  all  seem  to  be  there,"  said  the  girl. 

"  Yes,  but  there 's  a  difference  between  being  there 
by  your  own  fault  and  being  there  by  somebody 
else's." 

"  I  don't  call  it  his  fault,"  she  said. 

"  I  call  it  mine,"  said  the  Colonel. 

The  girl  laughed.  Her  thought  was  of  her  own 
care,  and  her  father's  wholly  of  his.  She  must 
come  to  his  ground.  "  What  have  you  been  doing 
wrong  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  as  you  'd  call  it  wrong.  It 's  what 
people  do  all  the  time.  But  I  wish  I'd  let  stocks 
alone.  It 's  what  I  always  promised  your  mother  I 
would  do.  But  there's  no  use  cryin'  over  spilt 
milk  ;  or  watered  stock,  either." 

"  I  don't  think  there 's  much  use  crying  about 
anything.  If  it  could  have  been  cried  straight,  it 
would  have  been  all  right  from  the  start,"  said  the 
girl,  going  back  to  her  own  affair ;  and  if  Lapham 
had  not  been  so  deeply  engrossed  in  his,  he  might 
have  seen  how  little  she  cared  for  all  that  money 
could  do  or  undo.  He  did  not  observe  her  enough 
to  see  how  variable  her  moods  were  in  those  days, 
and  how  often  she  sank  from  some  wild  gaiety  into 
abject  melancholy;  how  at  times  she  was  fiercely 
defiant  of  nothing  at  all,  and  at  others  inexplicably 
humble  and  patient.  But  no  doubt  none  of  these 
signs  had  passed  unnoticed  by  his  wife,  to  whom 
Lapham  said  one  day,  when  he  came  home,  "  Persis, 
what 's  the  reason  Pen  don't  marry  Corey  ?" 

"You  know  as  well  as  I  do,   Silas,"  said  Mrs. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  405 

Lapham,  with  an  inquiring  look  at  him  for  what 
lay  behind  his  words. 

"  Well,  I  think  it 's  all  tomfoolery,  the  way  she 's 
going  on.  There  ain't  any  rhyme  nor  reason  to  it." 
He  stopped,  and  his  wife  waited.  "  If  she  said  the 
word,  I  could  have  some  help  from  them."  He  hung 
his  head,  and  would  not  meet  his  wife's  eye. 

"  I  guess  you  're  in  a  pretty  bad  way,  Si,"  she  said 
pityingly,  "  or  you  wouldn't  have  come  to  that." 

"  I  'in  in  a  hole,"  said  Lapham,  "  and  I  don't  know 
where  to  turn.  You  won't  let  me  do  anything  about 
those  mills " 

"  Yes,  I  '11  let  you,"  said  his  wife  sadly. 

He  gave  a  miserable  cry.  "  You  know  I  can't  do 
anything,  if  you  do.  O  my  Lord  !" 

She  had  not  seen  him  so  low  as  that  before.  She 
did  not  know  what  to  say.  She  was  frightened,  and 
could  only  ask,  "Has  it  come  to  the  worst  ?" 

"  The  new  house  has  got  to  go,"  he  answered 
evasively. 

She  did  not  say  anything.  She  knew  that  the 
work  on  the  house  had  been  stopped  since  the  be 
ginning  of  the  year.  Lapham  had  told  the  architect 
that  he  preferred  to  leave  it  unfinished  till  the 
spring,  as  there  was  no  prospect  of  their  being  able 
to  get  into  it  that  winter ;  and  the  architect  had 
agreed  with  him  that  it  would  not  hurt  it  to  stand. 
Her  heart  was  heavy  for  him,  though  she  could  not 
say  so.  They  sat  together  at  the  table,  where  she 
had  come  to  be  with  him  at  his  belated  meal.  She 
saw  that  he  did  not  eat,  and  she  waited  for  him  to 


406  THE  RISE  OF 

speak  again,  without  urging  him  to  take  anything. 
They  were  past  that. 

"  And  I  've  sent  orders  to  shut  down  at  the 
Works, ".he  added. 

"  Shut  down  at  the  Works  ! "  she  echoed  with 
dismay.  She  could  not  take  it  in.  The  fire  at  the 
Works  had  never  been  out  before  since  it  was  first 
kindled.  She  knew  how  he  had  prided  himself  upon 
that ;  how  he  had  bragged  of  it  to  every  listener,  and 
had  always  lugged  the  fact  in  as  the  last  expression 
of  his  sense  of  success.  "  0  Silas  ! " 

"What's  the  use?"  he  retorted.  "I  saw  it  was 
coming  a  month  ago.  There  are  some  fellows  out  in 
West  Virginia  that  have  been  running  the  paint  as 
hard  as  they  could.  They  couldn't  do  much  ;  they 
used  to  put  it  on  the  market  raw.  But  lately 
they  got  to  baking  it,  and  now  they've  struck  a 
vein  of  natural  gas  right  by  their  works,  and  they 
pay  ten  cents  for  fuel,  where  I  pay  a  dollar,  and 
they  make  as  good  a  paint.  Anybody  can  see  where 
it 's  going  to  end.  Besides,  the  market 's  over 
stocked.  '  It 's  glutted.  There  wan't  anything  to  do 
but  to  shut  down,  and  I  Ve  shut  down." 

"  I  don't  know  what 's  going  to  become  of  the 
hands  in  the  middle  of  the  winter,  this  way,"  said 
Mrs.  Lapham,  laying  hold  of  one  definite  thought 
which  she  could  grasp  in  the  turmoil  of  ruin  that 
whirled  before  her  eyes. 

"  I  don't  care  what  becomes  of  the  hands,"  cried 
Lapham.  "  They  've  shared  my  luck  ;  now  let  'em 
share  the  other  thing.  And  if  you  're  so  very  sorry 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  407 

for  the  hands,  I  wish  you  'd  keep  a  little  of  your  pity 
for  me.  Don't  you  know  what  shutting  down  the 
Works  means  1 " 

"  Yes,  indeed  I  do,  Silas,"  said  his  wife  tenderly. 

"Well,  then  !"  He  rose,  leaving  his  supper  un- 
tasted,  and  went  into  the  sitting-room,  where  she 
presently  found  him,  with  that  everlasting  confusion 
of  papers  before  him  on  the  desk.  That  made  her 
think  of  the  paper  in  her  work-basket,  and  she 
decided  not  to  make  the  careworn,  distracted  man 
ask  her  for  it,  after  all.  She  brought  it  to  him. 

He  glanced  blankly  at  it  and  then  caught  it  from 
her,  turning  red  and  looking  foolish.  "  Where  'd 
you  get  that  1" 

"  You  dropped  it  on  the  floor  the  other  night,  and 
I  picked  it  up.  Who  is  '  Wm.  M.'  ? " 

"  '  Wm.  M."2"  he  repeated,  looking  confusedly  at 
her,  and  then  at  the  paper.  "Oh, — it's  nothing." 
He  tore  the  paper  into  small  pieces,  and  went  and 
dropped  them  into  the  fire.  When  Mrs.  Lapham 
came  into  the  room  in  the  morning,  before  he  was 
down,  she  found  a  scrap  of  the  paper,  which  must 
have  fluttered  to  the  hearth  ;  and  glancing  at  it  she 
saw  that  the  words  were  "  Mrs.  M."  She  wondered 
what  dealings  with  a  woman  her  husband  could  have, 
and  she  remembered  the  confusion  he  had  shown 
about  the  paper,  and  which  she  had  thought  was 
because  she  had  surprised  one  of  his  business  secrets. 
She  was  still  thinking  of  it  when  he  came  down  to 
breakfast,  heavy-eyed,  tremulous,  with  deep  seams 
and  wrinkles  in  his  face. 


408  THE  RISE  OF 

After  a  silence  which  he  did  not  seem  inclined  to 
break,  "  Silas,"  she  asked,  "  who  is  '  Mrs.  M.'  ?  " 

He  stared  at  her.  "  I  don't  know  what  you  're 
talking  about." 

"  Don't  you  ? "  she  returned  mockingly.  "  When 
you  do,  you  tell  me.  Do  you  want  any  more  coffee  1 " 

"  No." 

"  Well,  then,  you  can  ring  for  Alice  when  you  Ve 
finished.  I  Ve  got  some  things  to  attend  to."  She 
rose  abruptly,  and  left  the  room.  Lapham  looked 
after  her  in  a  dull  way,  and  then  went  on  with  his 
breakfast.  While  he  still  sat  at  his  coffee,  she  flung 
into  the  room  again,  and  dashed  some  papers  down 
beside  his  plate.  "  Here  are  some  more  things  of 
yours,  and  I  '11  thank  you  to  lock  them  up  in  your 
desk  and  not  litter  my  room  with  them,  if  yon  please." 
Now  he  saw  that  she  was  angry,  and  it  must  be  with 
him.  It  enraged  him  that  in  such  a  time  of  trouble 
she  should  fly  out  at  him  in  that  way.  He  left  the 
house  without  trying  to  speak  to  her. 

That  day  Corey  came  just  before  closing,  and, 
knocking  at  Lapham's  door,  asked  if  he  could  speak 
with  him  a  few  moments. 

"  Yes,"  said  Lapham,  wheeling  round  in  his  swivel- 
chair  and  kicking  another  towards  Corey.  "  Sit 
down.  I  want  to  talk  to  you.  I  'd  ought  to  tell  you 
you  're  wasting  your  time  here.  I  spoke  the  other 
day  about  your  placin'  yourself  better,  and  I  can  help 
you  to  do  it,  yet.  There  ain't  going  to  be  the  out 
come  for  the  paint  in  the  foreign  markets  that  we 
expected,  and  I  guess  you  better  give  it  up." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  409 

"  I  don't  wish  to  give  it  up,"  said  the  young  fellow, 
setting  his  lips.  "  I  've  as  much  faith  in  it  as  ever  ; 
and  I  want  to  propose  now  what  I  hinted  at  in  the 
first  place.  I  want  to  put  some  money  into  the 
business." 

"  Some  money  ! "  Lapham  leaned  towards  him,  and 
frowned  as  if  he  had  not  quite  understood,  while  he 
clutched  the  arms  of  his  chair. 

"  I  've  got  about  thirty  thousand  dollars  that  I 
could  put  in,  and  if  you  don't  want  to  consider  me  a 
partner — I  remember  that  you  objected  to  a  partner — 
you  can  let  me  regard  it  as  an  investment.  But  I 
think  I  see  the  way  to  doing  something  at  once  in 
Mexico,  and  I  should  like  to  feel  that  I  had  some 
thing  more  than  a  drummer's  interest  in  the  ven 
ture." 

The  men  sat  looking  into  each  other's  eyes.  Then 
Lapham  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and  rubbed  his 
hand  hard  and  slowly  over  his  face.  His  features 
were  still  twisted  with  some  strong  emotion  when 
he  took  it  away.  "Your  family  know  about 
this  1  " 

"  My  Uncle  James  knows." 

"  He  thinks  it  would  be  a  good  plan  for  you  1 " 

"  He  thought  that  by  this  time  I  ought  to  be  able 
to  trust  my  own  judgment." 

"Do  you  suppose  I  could  see  your  uncle  at  his 
office?"' 

"  I  imagine  he 's  there." 

"  Well,  I  want  to  have  a  talk  with  him,  one  of 
these  days."  He  sat  pondering  a  while,  and  then 


410  THE  RISE  OF 

rose,  and  went  with  Corey  to  his  door.  "  I  guess 
I  shan't  change  my  mind  about  taking  you  into  the 
business  in  that  way,"  he  said  coldly.  "  If  there 
was  any  reason  why  I  shouldn't  at  first,  there's 
more  now." 

"  Very  well,  sir,"  answered  the  young  man,  and 
went  to  close  his  desk.  The  outer  office  was  empty ; 
but  while  Corey  was  putting  his  papers  in  order  it 
was  suddenly  invaded  by  two  women,  who  pushed 
by  the  protesting  porter  on  the  stairs  and  made 
their  way  towards  Lapham's  room.  One  of  them 
was  Miss  Dewey,  the  type-writer  girl,  and  the  other 
was  a  woman  whom  she  would  resemble  in  face  and 
figure  twenty  years  hence,  if  she  led  a  life  of  hard 
work  varied  by  paroxysms  of  hard  drinking. 

"  That  his  room,  Z'rilla  ? "  asked  this  woman, 
pointing  towards  Lapham's  door  with  a  hand  that 
had  not  freed  itself  from  the  fringe  of  dirty  shawl 
under  which  it  had  hung.  She  went  forward  with 
out  waiting  for  the  answer,  but  before  she  could  reach 
it  the  door  opened,  and  Lapham  stood  filling  its 
space. 

"  Look  here,  Colonel  Lapham  !"  began  the  woman, 
in  a  high  key  of  challenge.  "  I  want  to  know  if  this 
is  the  way  you  're  goin'  back  on  me  and  Z'rilla  ] " 

"  What  do  you  want  1 "  asked  Lapham. 

"  What  do  I  want  1  What  do  you  s'pose  I  want  ? 
I  want  the  money  to  pay  my  month's  rent ;  there 
ain't  a  bite  to  eat  in  the  house ;  and  I  want  some 
money  to  market." 

Lapham  bent  a  frown  on  the  woman,  under  which 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  411 

she  shrank  back  a  step.  "  You  've  taken  the  wrong 
way  to  get  it.  Clear  out ! " 

"I  ivon't  clear  out ! "  said  the  woman,  beginning 
to  whimper. 

"  Corey  ! "  said  Lapham,  in  the  peremptory  voice 
of  a  master, — he  had  seemed  so  indifferent  to  Corey's 
presence  that  the  young  man  thought  he  must  have 
forgotten  he  was  there, — "  Is  Dennis  anywhere 
round  ? " 

"  Yissor,"  said  Dennis,  answering  for  himself  from 
the  head  of  the  stairs,  and  appearing  in  the  ware- 
room. 

Lapham  spoke  to  the  woman  again.  "Do  you 
want  I  should  call  a  hack,  or  do  you  want  I  should 
call  an  officer  ? " 

The  woman  began  to  cry  into  an  end  of  her  shawl. 
"  /  don't  know  what  we  're  goin'  to  do." 

"  You  're  going  to  clear  out,"  said  Lapham.  "  Call 
a  hack,  Dennis.  If  you  ever  come  here  again,  I  '11 
have  you  arrested.  Mind  that !  Zerrilla,  I  shall 
want  you  early  to-morrow  morning." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  girl  meekly ;  she  and  her 
mother  shrank  out  after  the  porter. 

Lapham  shut  his  door  without  a  word. 

At  lunch  the  next  day  Walker  made  himself 
amends  for  Corey's  reticence  by  talking  a  great  deal. 
He  talked  about  Lapham,  who  seemed  to  have,  more 
than  ever  since  his  apparent  difficulties  began,  the 
fascination  of  an  enigma  for  his  book-keeper,  and  he 
ended  by  asking,  "  Did  you  see  that  little  circus  last 
night  ? " 


412  THE  RISE  OF 

"  What  little  circus  ? "  asked  Corey  in  his  turn. 

"  Those  two  women  and  the  old  man.  Dennis 
told  me  about  it.  I  told  him  if  he  liked  his  place 
he  'd  better  keep  his  mouth  shut." 

"  That  was  very  good  advice,"  said  Corey. 

"  Oh,  all  right,  if  you  don't  want  to  talk.  Don't 
know  as  I  should  in  your  place,"  returned  Walker, 
in  the  easy  security  he  had  long  felt  that  Corey  had 
no  intention  of  putting  on  airs  with  him.  "  But  I  '11 
tell  you  what :  the  old  man  can't  expect  it  of  every 
body.  If  he  keeps  this  thing  up  much  longer,  it  'a 
going  to  be  talked  about.  You  can't  have  a  woman 
walking  into  your  place  of  business,  and  trying  to 
bulldoze  you  before  your  porter,  without  setting  your 
porter  to  thinking.  And  the  last  thing  you  want  a 
porter  to  do  is  to  think ;  for  when  a  porter  thinks, 
he  thinks  wrong." 

"  I  don't  see  why  even  a  porter  couldn't  think 
right  about  that  affair,"  replied  Corey.  "  I  don't 
know  who  the  woman  was,  though  I  believe  she  was 
Miss  Dewey's  mother ;  but  I  couldn't  see  that 
Colonel  Lapham  showed  anything  but  a  natural 
resentment  of  her  coming  to  him  in  that  way.  I 
should  have  said  she  was  some  rather  worthless 
person  whom  he  'd  been  befriending,  and  that  she 
had  presumed  upon  his  kindness." 

"  Is  that  so  1  What  do  you  think  of  his  never 
letting  Miss  Dewey's  name  go  on  the  books  1 " 

"  That  it 's  another  proof  it 's  a  sort  of  charity  of 
his.  That 's  the  only  way  to  look  at  it" 

"  Oh,  I'm  all  right."     Walker  lighted  a  cigar  and 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  413 

began  to  smoke,  with  his  eyes  closed  to  a  fine  straight 
line.  "  It  won't  do  for  a  book-keeper  to  think  wrong, 
any  more  than  a  porter,  I  suppose.  But  I  guess  you 
and  I  don't  think  very  different  about  this  thing." 

"  Not  if  you  think  as  I  do,"  replied  Corey  steadily; 
"  and  I  know  you  would  do  that  if  you  had  seen  the 
'  circus  '  yourself.  A  man  doesn't  treat  people  who 
have  a  disgraceful  hold  upon  him  as  he  treated 
them." 

"  It  depends  upon  who  he  is,"  said  Walker,  taking 
his  cigar  from  his  mouth.  "  I  never  said  the  old 
man  was  afraid  of  anything." 

"  And  character,"  continued  Corey,  disdaining  to 
touch  the  matter  further,  except  in  generalities, 
"  must  go  for  something.  If  it 's  to  be  the  prey  of 
mere  accident  and  appearance,  then  it  goes  for 
nothing." 

"Accidents  will  happen  in  the  best  regulated 
families,"  said  Walker,  with  vulgar,  good-humoured 
obtuseness  that  filled  Corey  with  indignation. 
Nothing,  perhaps,  removed  his  matter-of-fact  nature 
further  from  the  commonplace  than  a  certain  gene 
rosity  of  instinct,  which  I  should  not  be  ready  to  say 
was  always  infallible. 

That  evening  it  was  Miss  Dewey's  turn  to  wait  for 
speech  with  Lapham  after  the  others  were  gone. 
He  opened  his  door  at  her  knock,  and  stood  looking 
at  her  with  a  worried  air.  "  Well,  what  do  you  want, 
Zerrilla  ? "  he  asked,  with  a  sort  of  rough  kindness. 

"I  want  to  know  what  I'm  going  to  do  about 
Hen.  He 's  back  again  ;  and  he  and  mother  have 


414  THE  RISE  OF 

made  it  up,  and  they  both  got  to  drinking  last  night 
after  I  went  home,  and  carried  on  so  that  the  neigh 
bours  came  in." 

Lapham  passed  his  hand  over  his  red  and  heated 
face.  "  I  don't  know  what  I  'm  going  to  do.  You  're 
twice  the  trouble  that  my  own  family  is,  now.  But 
I  know  what  I  'd  do,  mighty  quick,  if  it  wasn't  for 
you,  Zerrilla,"  he  went  on  relentingly.  "  I  'd  shut 
your  mother  up  somewheres,  and  if  I  could  get  that 
fellow  off  for  a  three  years'  voyage " 

"  I  declare,"  said  Miss  Dewey,  beginning  to 
whimper,  "  it  seems  as  if  he  came  back  just  so  often 
to  spite  me.  He 's  never  gone  more  than  a  year  at 
the  furthest,  and  you  can't  make  it  out  habitual 
drunkenness,  either,  when  it 's  just  sprees.  I  'm  at 
my  wit's  end." 

"  Oh,  well,  you  mustn't  cry  around  here,"  said 
Lapham  soothingly. 

"  I  know  it,"  said  Miss  Dewey.  "  If  I  could  get 
rid  of  Hen,  I  could  manage  well  enough  with  mother. 
Mr.  Wemmel  would  marry  me  if  I  could  get  the 
divorce.  "He 's  said  so  over  and  over  again." 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  like  that  very  well,"  said 
Lapham,  frowning.  "  I  don't  know  as  I  want  you 
should  get  married  in  any  hurry  again.  I  don't 
know  as  I  like  your  going  with  anybody  else  just 
yet" 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  be  afraid  but  what  it  '11  be  all 
right.  It  '11  be  the  best  thing  all  round,  if  I  can 
marry  him." 

"Well!"    said  Lapham  impatiently;    "I  can't 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  415 

think  about  it  now.  I  suppose  they've  cleaned 
everything  out  again  ? " 

"  Yes,  they  have,"  said  Zerrilla ;  "  there  isn't  a 
cent  left." 

"You're  a  pretty  expensive  lot,"  said  Lapham. 
"  Well,  here ! "  He  took  out  his  pocket-book  and 
gave  her  a  note.  "  I  '11  be  round  to-night  and  see 
what  can  be  done." 

He  shut  himself  into  his  room  again,  and  Zerrilla 
dried  her  tears,  put  the  note  into  her  bosom,  and 
went  her  way. 

Lapham  kept  the  porter  nearly  an  hour  later.  It 
was  then  six  o'clock,  the  hour  at  which  the  Laphams 
usually  had  tea  ;  but  all  custom  had  been  broken  up 
with  him  during  the  past  months,  and  he  did  not  go 
home  now.  He  determined,  perhaps  in  the  extremity 
in  which  a  man  finds  relief  in  combating  one  care 
with  another,  to  keep  his  promise  to  Miss  Dewey, 
and  at  the  moment  when  he  might  otherwise  have 
been  sitting  down  at  his  own  table  he  was  climbing 
the  stairs  to  her  lodging  in  the  old-fashioned  dwelling 
which  had  been  portioned  off  into  flats.  •  It  was  in 
a  region  of  depots,  and  of  the  cheap  hotels,  and 
"  ladies'  and  gents' "  dining-rooms,  and  restaurants 
with  bars,  which  abound  near  depots ;  and  Lapham 
followed  to  Miss  Dewey's  door  a  waiter  from  one  of 
these,  who  bore  on  a  salver  before  him  a  supper 
covered  with  a  napkin.  Zerrilla  had  admitted  them, 
and  at  her  greeting  a  young  fellow  in  the  shabby 
shore-suit  of  a  sailor,  buttoning  imperfectly  over  the 
nautical  blue  flannel  of  his  shirt,  got  up  from  where 


416  THE  RISE  OF 

he  had  been  sitting,  on  one  side  of  the  stove,  and 
stood  infirmly  on  his  feet,  in  token  of  receiving  the 
visitor.  The  woman  who  sat  on  the  other  side  did 
not  rise,  but  began  a  shrill,  defiant  apology. 

"Well,  I  don't  suppose  but  what  you'll  think 
we're  livin'  on  the  fat  o'  the  land,  right  straight 
along,  all  the  while.  But  it 's  just  like  this.  When 
that  child  came  in  from  her  work,  she  didn't  seem  to 
have  the  spirit  to  go  to  cookin'  anything,  and  I  had 
such  a  bad  night  last  night  I  was  feelin'  all  broke 
up,  and  s'd  I,  what's  the  use,  anyway?  By  the 
time  the  butcher 's  heaved  in  a  lot  o'  bone,  and  made 
you  pay  for  the  suet  he  cuts  away,  it  comes  to  the 
same  thing,  and  why  not  git  it  from  the  rest'rant 
first  off,  and  save  the  cost  o'  your  fire  ?  s'd  I." 

"  What  have  you  got  there  under  your  apron  1  A 
bottle  1 "  demanded  Lapham,  who  stood  with  his  hat 
on  and  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  indifferent  alike  to 
the  ineffective  reception  of  the  sailor  and  the  chair 
Zerrilla  had  set  him. 

"Well,  yes,  it's  a  bottle,"  said  the  woman,  with 
an  assumption  of  virtuous  frankness.  "  It 's  whisky ; 
I  got  to  have  something  to  rub  my  rheumatism  with." 

"  Humph  ! "  grumbled  Lapham.  "  You  've  been 
rubbing  his  rheumatism  too,  I  see." 

He  twisted  his  head  in  the  direction  of  the  sailor, 
now  softly  and  rhythmically  waving  to  and  fro  on 
his  feet. 

"  He  hain't  had  a  drop  to-day  in  this  house  ! "  cried 
the  woman. 

"  What  are  you  doing  around  here  1 "  said  Lap- 
ham,  turning  fiercely  upon  him.  "You've  got  no 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  417 

business  ashore.  Where  's  your  ship  1  Do  you  think 
I  'm  going  to  let  you  come  here  and  eat  your  wife 
out  of  house  and  home,  and  then  give  money  to  keep 
the  concern  going  1 " 

"  Just  the  very  words  I  said  when  he  first  showed 
his  face  here,  yist'day.  Didn't  I,  Z'rilla  1 "  said  the 
woman,  eagerly  joining  in  the  rebuke  of  her  late 
boon  companion.  "  You  got  no  business  here,  Hen, 
s'd  I.  You  can't  come  here  to  live  on  me  and  Z'rilla, 
s'd  I.  You  want  to  go  back  to  your  ship,  s'd  I. 
That 's  what  I  said." 

The  sailor  mumbled,  with  a  smile  of  tipsy  amia 
bility  for  Lapham,  something  about  the  crew  being 
discharged. 

"  Yes,"  the  woman  broke  in,  "that's  always  the 
way  with  these  coasters.  Why  don't  you  go  off  on 
some  them  long  v'y'ges  ?  s'd  I.  It 's  pretty  hard 
when  Mr.  Wemmel  stands  ready  to  marry  Z'rilla  and 
provide  a  comfortable  home  for  us  both — I  hain't  got 
a  great  many  years  more  to  live,  and  I  should  like  to 
get  some  satisfaction  out  of  'em,  and  not  be  beholden 
and  dependent  all  my  days, — to  have  Hen,  here, 
blockin'  the  way.  I  tell  him  there  'd  be  more  money 
for  him  in  the  end ;  but  he  can't  seem  to  make  up 
his  mind  to  it." 

"  Well,  now,  look  here,"  said  Lapham.  "  I  don't 
care  anything  about  all  that.  It 's  your  own  business, 
and  I  'm  not  going  to  meddle  with  it.  But  it 's  my 
business  who  lives  off  me  ;  and  so  I  tell  you  all  three, 
I  'm  willing  to  take  care  of  Zerrilla,  and  I  'm  willing 

to  take  care  of  her  mother " 

2D 


418  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  guess  if  it  hadn't  been  for  that  child's  father," 
the  mother  interpolated,  "you  wouldn't  been  here 
to  tell  the  tale,  Colonel  Lapham." 

"I  know  all  about  that,"  said  Lapham.  "But 
I  '11  tell  you  what,  Mr.  Dewey,  I  'm  not  going  to 
support  you" 

"  I  don't  see  what  Hen's  done,"  said  the  old  woman 
impartially. 

"  He  hasn't  done  anything,  and  I  'm  going  to  stop 
it  He 's  got  to  get  a  ship,  and  he  's  got  to  get  out 
of  this.  And  Zerrilla  needn't  come  back  to  work 
till  he  does.  I  'm  done  with  you  all." 

"  Well,  I  vow,"  said  the  mother,  "  if  I  ever  heard 
anything  like  it !  Didn't  that  child's  father  lay  down 
his  life  for  you  ?  Hain't  you  said  it  yourself  a  hun 
dred  times  ?  And  don't  she  work  for  her  money,  and 
slave  for  it  mornin',  noon,  and  night  ?  You  talk  as 
if  we  was  beholden  to  you  for  the  very  bread  in 
our  mouths.  I  guess  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Jim,  you 
wouldn't  been  here  crowin'  over  us." 

"You  mind  what  I  say.  I  mean  business  this 
time,"  said  Lapham,  turning  to  the  door. 

The  woman  rose  and  followed  him,  with  her  bottle 
in  her  hand.  "  Say,  Colonel !  what  should  you 
advise  Z'rilla  to  do  about  Mr.  Wemmel  ?  I  tell  her 
there  ain't  any  use  goin'  to  the  trouble  to  git  a  divorce 
without  she 's  sure  about  him.  Don't  you  think  we'd 
ought  to  git  him  to  sign  a  paper,  or  something,  that 
he  '11  marry  her  if  she  gits  it  1  I  don't  like  to  have 
things  going  at  loose  ends  the  way  they  are.  It  ain't 
sense.  It  ain't  right." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  419 

Lapham  made  no  answer  to  the  mother  anxious 
for  her  child's  future,  and  concerned  for  the  moral 
questions  involved.  He  went  out  and  down  the 
stairs,  and  on  the  pavement  at  the  lower  door  he 
almost  struck  against  Rogers,  who  had  a  bag  in  his 
hand,  and  seemed  to  be  hurrying  towards  one  of  the 
depots.  He  halted  a  little,  as  if  to  speak  to  Lapham ; 
but  Lapham  turned  his  back  abruptly  upon  him,  and 
took  the  other  direction. 

The  days  were  going  by  in  a  monotony  of  adver 
sity  to  him,  from  which  he  could  no  longer  escape, 
even  at  home.  He  attempted  once  or  twice  to  talk 
of  his  troubles  to  his  wife,  but  she  repulsed  him 
sharply  ;  she  seemed  to  despise  and  hate  him ;  but  he 
set  himself  doggedly  to  make  a  confession  to  her,  and 
he  stopped  her  one  night,  as  she  came  into  the  room 
where  he  sat — hastily  upon  some  errand  that  was  to 
take  her  directly  away  again. 

"  Persis,  there 's  something  I  Ve  got  to  tell  you." 

She  stood  still,  as  if  fixed  against  her  will,  to 
listen. 

"  I  guess  you  know  something  about  it  already, 
and  I  guess  it  set  you  against  me." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  not,  Colonel  Lapham.  You  go  your 
way,  and  I  go  mine.  That's  all." 

She  waited  for  him  to  speak,  listening  with  a  cold, 
hard  smile  on  her  face. 

"  I  don't  say  it  to  make  favour  with  you,  because 
I  don't  want  you  to  spare  me,  and  I  don't  ask  you  ; 
but  I  got  into  it  through  Milton  K.  Eogers." 

"  Oh  ! "  said  Mrs.  Lapham  contemptuously. 


420  THE  RISE  OF 

"  I  always  felt  the  way  I  said  about  it — that  it 
wan't  any  better  than  gambling,  and  I  say  so  now. 
It 's  like  betting  on  the  turn  of  a  card ;  and  I  give 
you  my  word  of  honour,  Persis,  that  I  never  was  in 
it  at  all  till  that  scoundrel  began  to  load  me  up  with 
those  wild-cat  securities  of  his.  Then  it  seemed  to 
me  as  if  I  ought  to  try  to  do  something  to  get  some 
where  even.  I  know  it 's  no  excuse  ;  but  watching 
the  market  to  see  what  the  infernal  things  were 
worth  from  day  to  day,  and  seeing  it  go  up,  and 
seeing  it  go  down,  was  too  much  for  me;  and,  to 
make  a  long  story  short,  I  began  to  buy  and  sell  on 
a  margin — just  what  I  told  you  I  never  would  do. 
I  seemed  to  make  something — I  did  make  something ; 
and  I  'd  have  stopped,  I  do  believe,  if  I  could  have 
reached  the  figure  I  'd  set  in  my  own  mind  to  start 
with ;  but  I  couldn't  fetch  it.  I  began  to  lose,  and 
then  I  began  to  throw  good  money  after  bad,  just  as 
I  always  did  with  everything  that  Kogers  ever  came 
within  a  mile  of.  Well,  what 's  the  use  1  I  lost  the 
money  that  would  have  carried  me  out  of  this,  and  I 
shouldn't  have  had  to  shut  down  the  Works,  or  sell 
the  house,  or " 

Lapham  stopped.  His  wife,  who  at  first  had 
listened  with  mystification,  and  then  dawning  in 
credulity,  changing  into  a  look  of  relief  that  was 
almost  triumph,  lapsed  again  into  severity.  "  Silas 
Lapham,  if  you  was  to  die  the  next  minute,  is  this 
what  you  started  to  tell  me  1 " 

"  Why,  of  course  it  is.  What  did  you  suppose  I 
started  to  tell  you  ? " 


SILAS  LAPHAM:.  421 

"  And — look  me  in  the  eyes  ! — you  haven't  got 
anything  else  on  your  mind  now  1 " 

"  No  !  There 's  trouble  enough,  the  Lord  knows  ; 
but  there 's  nothing  else  to  tell  you.  I  suppose  Pen 
gave  you  a  hint  about  it.  I  dropped  something  to 
her.  I  've  been  feeling  bad  about  it,  Persis,  a  good 
while,  but  I  hain't  had  the  heart  to  speak  of  it.  I 
can't  expect  you  to  say  you  like  it.  I  've  been  a  fool, 
I  '11  allow,  and  I  've  been  something  worse,  if  you 
choose  to  say  so  ;  but  that 's  all.  I  haven't  hurt 
anybody  but  myself — and  you  and  the  children." 

Mrs.  Lapham  rose  and  said,  with  her  face  from 
him,  as  she  turned  towards  the  door,  "  It 's  all  right, 
Silas.  I  shan't  ever  bring  it  up  against  you." 

She  fled  out  of  the  room,  but  all  that  evening  she 
was  very  sweet  with  him,  and  seemed  to  wish  in  all 
tacit  ways  to  atone  for  her  past  unkindness. 

She  made  him  talk  of  his  business,  and  he  told  her 
of  Corey's  offer,  and  what  he  had  done  about  it.  She 
did  not  seem  to  care  for  his  part  in  it,  however ;  at 
which  Lapham  was  silently  disappointed  a  little,  for 
he  would  have  liked  her  to  praise  him. 

"  He  did  it  on  account  of  Pen  !  " 

"Well,  he  didn't  insist  upon  it,  anyway,"  said 
Lapham,  who  must  have  obscurely  expected  that 
Corey  would  recognise  his  own  magnanimity  by 
repeating  his  offer.  If  the  doubt  that  follows  a  self- 
devoted  action — the  question  whether  it  was  not 
after  all  a  needless  folly — is  mixed,  as  it  was  in 
Lapham's  case,  with  the  vague  belief  that  we  might 
have  done  ourselves  a  good  turn  without  great  risk 


422  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

of  hurting  any  one  else  by  being  a  little  less  unselfish, 
it  becomes  a  regret  that  is  hard  to  bear.  Since  Corey 
spoke  to  him,  some  things  had  happened  that  gave 
Lapham  hope  again. 

"  I  'm  going  to  tell  her  about  it,"  said  his  wife,  and 
she  showed  herself  impatient  to  make  up  for  the 
time  she  had  lost.  "  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  before, 
Silas  ? " 

"  I  didn't  know  we  were  on  speaking  terms  before," 
said  Lapham  sadly. 

"Yes,  that's  true,"  she  admitted,  with  a  conscious 
flush.  "  I  hope  he  won't  think  Pen  's  known  about 
it  all  this  while." 


XXIV. 

THAT  evening  James  Bellingham  came  to  see 
Corey  after  dinner,  and  went  to  find  him  in  his  own 
room. 

"  I  've  come  at  the  instance  of  Colonel  Lapham," 
said  the  uncle.  "He  was  at  my  office  to-day,  and  I 
had  a  long  talk  with  him.  Did  you  know  that  he 
was  in  difficulties  7 " 

"  I  fancied  that  he  was  in  some  sort  of  trouble. 
And  I  had  the  book-keeper's  conjectures — he  doesn't 
really  know  much  about  it." 

"Well,  he  thinks  it  time — on  all  accounts — that 
you  should  know  how  he  stands,  and  why  he  de 
clined  that  proposition  of  yours.  I  must  say  he  has 
behaved  very  well — like  a  gentleman." 

"  I  'm  not  surprised." 

"  I  am.  It 's  hard  to  behave  like  a  gentleman 
where  your  interest  is  vitally  concerned.  And  Lap- 
ham  doesn't  strike  me  as  a  man  who 's  in  the  habit 
of  acting  from  the  best  in  him  always." 

"  Do  any  of  us  ?  "  asked  Corey. 

"Not  all  of  us,  at  any  rate,"  said  Bellingham. 
"It  must  have  cost  him  something  to  say  no  to 

423 


424  THE  RISE  OF 

you,  for  he  's  just  in  that  state  when  he  believes 
that  this  or  that  chance,  however  small,  would  save 
him." 

Corey  was  silent.  "Is  he  really  in  such  a  bad 
way  ? " 

"  It 's  hard  to  tell  just  where  he  stands.  I  suspect 
that  a  hopeful  temperament  and  fondness  for  round 
numbers  have  always  caused  him  to  set  his  figures 
beyond  his  actual  worth.  I  don't  say  that  he  's  been 
dishonest  about  it,  but  he 's  had  a  loose  way  of 
estimating  his  assets ;  he 's  reckoned  his  wealth  on 
the  basis  of  his  capital,  and  some  of  his  capital  is 
borrowed.  He 's  lost  heavily  by  some  of  the  recent 
failures,  and  there 's  been  a  terrible  shrinkage  in  his 
values.  I  don't  mean  merely  in  the  stock  of  paint 
on  hand,  but  in  a  kind  of  competition  which  has  be 
come  very  threatening.  You  know  about  that  West 
Virginian  paint  ? " 

Corey  nodded. 

"  Well,  he  tells  me  that  they  Ve  struck  a  vein  of 
natural  gas  out  there  which  will  enable  them  to 
make  as  good  a  paint  as  his  own  at  a  cost  of  manu 
facturing  so  low  that  they  can  undersell  him  every 
where.  If  this  proves  to  be  the  case,  it  will  not  only 
drive  his  paint  out  of  the  market,  but  will  reduce 
the  value  of  his  Works — the  whole  plant — at  Lap- 
ham  to  a  merely  nominal  figure." 

"  I  see,"  said  Corey  dejectedly.  "  I  've  understood 
that  he  had  put  a  great  deal  of  money  into  his 
Works." 

"  Yes,  and  he  estimated  his  mine  there  at  a  high 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  425 

figure.  Of  course  it  will  be  worth  little  or  nothing 
if  the  West  Virginia  paint  drives  his  out.  Then,  be 
sides,  Lapham  has  been  into  several  things  outside 
of  -his  own  business,  and,  like  a  good  many  other 
men  who  try  outside  things,  he 's  kept  account  of 
them  himself ;  and  he 's  all  mixed  up  about  them. 
He 's  asked  me  to  look  into  his  affairs  with  him,  and 
I  've  promised  to  do  so.  Whether  he  can  be  tided 
over  his  difficulties  remains  to  be  seen.  I  'm  afraid 
it  will  take  a  good  deal  of  money  to  do  it — a  great 
deal  more  than  he  thinks,  at  least.  He  believes  com 
paratively  little  would  do  it.  I  think  differently.  I 
think  that  anything  less  than  a  great  deal  would  be 
thrown  away  on  him.  If  it  were  merely  a  question 
of  a  certain  sum — even  a  large  sum — to  keep  him 
going,  it  might  be  managed ;  but  it 's  much  more 
complicated.  And,  as  I  say,  it  must  have  been  a 
trial  to  him  to  refuse  your  offer." 

This  did  not  seem  to  be  the  way  in  which  Belling- 
ham  had  meant  to  conclude.  But  he  said  no  more  ; 
and  Corey  made  him  no  response. 

He  remained  pondering  the  case,  now  hopefully, 
now  doubtfully,  and  wondering,  whatever  his  mood 
was,  whether  Penelope  knew  anything  of  the  fact 
with  which  her  mother  went  nearly  at  the  same 
moment  to  acquaint  her. 

"  Of  course,  he  's  done  it  on  your  account,"  Mrs. 
Lapham  could  not  help  saying. 

"  Then  he  was  very  silly.  Does  he  think  I  would 
let  him  give  father  money  1  And  if  father  lost  it  for 
him,  does  he  suppose  it  would  make  it  any  easier  for 


426  THE  RISE  OF 

me  1  I  think  father  acted  twice  as  well.  It  was 
very  silly." 

In  repeating  the  censure,  her  look  was  not  so 
severe  as  her  tone  ;  she  even  smiled  a  little,  and  her 
mother  reported  to  her  father  that  she  acted  more 
like  herself  than  she  had  yet  since  Corey's  offer. 

"  I  think,  if  he  was  to  repeat  his  offer,  she  would 
have  him  now,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham. 

"Well,  I'll  let  her  know  if  he  does,"  said  the 
Colonel. 

"  I  guess  he  won't  do  it  to  you  ! "  she  cried. 

"  Who  else  will  he  do  it  to  ? "  he  demanded. 

They  perceived  that  they  had  each  been  talking 
of  a  different  offer. 

After  Lapham  went  to  his  business  in  the  morning 
the  postman  brought  another  letter  from  Irene, 
which  was  full  of  pleasant  things  that  were  happen 
ing  to  her ;  there  was  a  great  deal  about  her  cousin 
Will,  as  she  called  him.  At  the  end  she  had  written, 
"  Tell  Pen  I  don't  want  she  should  be  foolish." 

"  There  ! "  said  Mrs.  Lapham.  "  I  guess  it 's  going 
to  come  out  right,  all  round ; "  and  it  seemed  as  if 
even  the  Colonel's  difficulties  were  past.  "When 
your  father  gets  through  this,  Pen,"  she  asked  im 
pulsively,  "  what  shall  you  do  1 " 

"  What  have  you  been  telling  Irene  about  me  ? " 

"  Nothing  much.     What  should  you  do  ?  " 

"  It  would  be  a  good  deal  easier  to  say  what  I 
should  do  if  father  didn't,"  said  the  girl. 

"  I  know  you  think  it  was  nice  in  him  to  make 
your  father  that  offer,"  urged  the  mother. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  427 

"  It  was  nice,  yes ;  but  it  was  silly,"  said  the 
girl.  "  Most  nice  things  are  silly,  I  suppose,"  she 
added. 

She  went  to  her  room  and  wrote  a  letter.  It  was 
very  long,  and  very  -carefully  written ;  and  when  she 
read  it  over,  she  tore  it  into  small  pieces.  She 
wrote  another  one,  short  and  hurried,  and  tore  that 
up  too.  Then  she  went  back  to  her  mother,  in  the 
family  room,  and  asked  to  see  Irene's  letter,  and  read 
it  over  to  herself.  "  Yes,  she  seems  to  be  having  a 
good  time,"  she  sighed.  "  Mother,  do  you  think  I 
ought  to  let  Mr.  Corey  know  that  I  know  about 
it?" 

"  "Well,  I  should  think  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to 
him,"  said  Mrs.  Lapham  judicially. 

"  I  'm  not  so  sure  of  that — the  way  I  should  have 
to  tell  him.  I  should  begin  by  giving  him  a  scolding. 
Of  course,  he  meant  well  by  it,  but  can't  you  see  that 
it  wasn't  very  flattering  1  How  did  he  expect  it 
would  change  me  ? " 

"  I  don't  believe  he  ever  thought  of  that." 

"  Don't  you  1    Why  ? " 

"Because  you  can  see  that  he  isn't  one  of  that 
kind.  He  might  want  to  please  you  without  want 
ing  to  change  you  by  what  he  did." 

"  Yes.  He  must  have  known  that  nothing  would 
change  me, — at  least,  nothing  that  he  could  do.  I 
thought  of  that.  I  shouldn't  like  him  to  feel  that  I 
couldn't  appreciate  it,  even  if  I  did  think  it  was  silly. 
Should  you  write  to  him  1 " 

"  I  don't  see  why  not." 


428  THE  RISE  OF 

"It  would  be  too  pointed.  No,  I  shall  just  let  it 
go.  I  wish  he  hadn't  done  it." 

"  Well,  he  has  done  it." 

"And  I've  tried  to  write  to  him  about  it — two 
letters :  one  so  humble  and  grateful  that  it  couldn't 
stand  up  on  its  edge,  and  the  other  so  pert  and  flip 
pant.  Mother,  I  wish  you  could  have  seen  those 
two  letters  !  I  wish  I  had  kept  them  to  look  at  if  I 
ever  got  to  thinking  I  had  any  sense  again.  They 
would  take  the  conceit  out  of  me." 

"  What 's  the  reason  he  don't  come  here  any  morel " 

"Doesn't  he  come  ?"  asked  Penelope  in  turn,  as 
if  it  were  something  she  had  not  noticed  particularly. 

"  You  'd  ought  to  know." 

"Yes."  She  sat  silent  a  while.  "If  he  doesn't 
come,  I  suppose  it 's  because  he  's  offended  at  some 
thing  I  did." 

"  What  did  you  do  ?  " 

"  Nothing.  I — wrote  to  him — a  little  while  ago. 
I  suppose  it  was  very  blunt,  but  I  didn't  believe  he 
would  be  angry  at  it.  But  this — this  that  he 's  done 
shows  he  was  angry,  and  that  he  wasn't  just  seizing 
the  first  chance  to  get  out  of  it." 

"  What  have  you  done,  Pen  ?  "  demanded  her 
mother  sharply. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  All  the  mischief  in  the  world, 
I  suppose.  I  '11  tell  you.  When  you  first  told  me 
that  father  was  in  trouble  with  his  business,  I  wrote 
to  him  not  to  come  any  more  till  I  let  him.  I  said 
I  couldn't  tell  him  why,  and  he  hasn't  been  here 
since.  I  'm  sure  /  don't  know  what  it  means." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  429 

Her  mother  looked  at  her  with  angry  severity. 
"  Well,  Penelope  Lapham  !  For  a  sensible  child, 
you  are  the  greatest  goose  I  ever  saw.  Did  you 
think  he  would  come  here  and  see  if  you  wouldn't 
let  him  come  1 " 

"  He  might  have  written,"  urged  the  girl. 

"Her  mother  made  that  despairing  "  Tchk  !  "  with 
her  tongue,  and  fell  back  in  her  chair.  "  I  should 
have  despised  him  if  he  had  written.  He  's  acted 
just  exactly  right,  and  you — you've  acted — I  don't 
know  how  you  've  acted.  I  'm  ashamed  of  you.  A 
girl  that  could  be  so  sensible  for  her  sister,  and 
always  say  and  do  just  the  right  thing,  and  then 
when  it  comes  to  herself  to  be  such  a  disgusting 
simpleton  !  " 

"  I-  thought  I  ought  to  break  with  him  at  once, 
and  not  let  him  suppose  that  there  was  any  hope  for 
him  or  me  if  father  was  poor.  It  was  my  one 
chance,  in  this  whole  business,  to  do  anything 
heroic,  and  I  jumped  at  it.  You  mustn't  think,  be 
cause  I  can  laugh  at  it  now,  that  I  wasn't  in  earnest, 
mother  !  I  was — dead  !  But  the  Colonel  has  gone 
to  ruin  so  gradually,  that  he 's  spoilt  everj^thing.  I 
expected  that  he  would  be  bankrupt  the  next  day, 
and  that  then  he  would  understand  what  I  meant. 
But  to  have  it  drag  along  for  a  fortnight  seems 
to  take  all  the  heroism  out  of  it,  and  leave  it  as 
flat ! "  She  looked  at  her  mother  with  a  smile  that 
shone  through  her  tears,  and  a  pathos  that  quivered 
round  her  jesting  lips.  "  It 's  easy  enough  to  be 
sensible  for  other  people.  But  when  it  comes  to 


430  THE  RISE  OF 

myself,  there  I  am  !  Especially,  when  I  want  to  do 
what  I  oughtn't  so  much  that  it  seems  as  if  doing 
what  I  didn't  want  to  do  must  be  doing  what  I  ought ! 
But  it 's  been  a  great  success  one  way,  mother.  It 's 
helped  me  to  keep  up  before  the  Colonel.  If  it 
hadn't  been  for  Mr.  Corey  's  staying  away,  and  my 
feeling  so  indignant  with  him  for  having  been  badly 
treated  by  me,  I  shouldn't  have  been  worth  anything 
at  all" 

The  tears  started  down  her  cheeks,  but  her  mother 
said,  "  Well,  now,  go  along,  and  write  to  him.  It 
don't  matter  what  you  say,  much ;  and  don't  be  so 
very  particular." 

Her  third  attempt  at  a  letter  pleased  her  scarcely 
better  than  the  rest,  but  she  sent  it,  though  it  seemed 
so  blunt  and  awkward.  She  wrote  : — 

DEAR  FRIEND, — I  expected  when  I  sent  you  that  note, 
that  you  would  understand,  almost  the  next  day,  why  I 
could  not  see  you  any  more.  You  must  know  now,  and 
you  must  not  think  that  if  anything  happened  to  my 
father,  I  should  wish  you  to  help  him.  But  that  is  no 
reason  why  I  should  not  thank  you,  and  I  do  thank  you, 
for  offering.  It  was  like  you,  I  will  say  that. 

Yours  sincerely,  PENELOPE  LAPHAM. 

She  posted  her  letter,  and  he  sent  his  reply  in  the 
evening,  by  hand  : — 

DEAREST, — What  I  did  was  nothing,  till  you  praised  it. 
Everything  I  have  and  am  is  yours.  Won't  you  send  a  line 
by  the  bearer,  to  say  that  I  may  come  to  see  you  ?  I  know 
how  you  feel ;  but  I  am  sure  that  I  caii  make  you  think 


SILAS  LAPHAM  431 

differently.     You  must  consider  that  I  loved  you  without 
a  thought  of  your  father's  circumstances,  and  always  shall. 

T.  C. 

The  generous  words  were  blurred  to  her  eyes  by 
the  tears  that  sprang  into  them.  But  she  could  only 
write  in  answer  : — 

"  Please  do  not  come  ;  I  have  made  up  my  mind.  As 
long  as  this  trouble  is  hanging  over  us,  I  cannot  see  you. 
And  if  father  is  unfortunate,  all  is  over  between  us." 

She  brought  his  letter  to  her  mother,  and  told  her 
what  she  had  written  in  reply.  Her  mother  was 
thoughtful  a  while  before  she  said,  with  a  sigh,  "Well, 
I  hope  you  Ve  begun  as  you  can  carry  out,  Pen." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  not  have  to  carry  out  at  all.  I  shall 
not  have  to  do  anything.  That 's  one  comfort — the 
only  comfort."  She  went  away  to  her  own  room, 
and  when  Mrs.  Lapham  told  her  husband  of  the 
affair,  he  was  silent  at  first,  as  she  had  been.  Then 
he  said,  "  I  don't  know  as  I  should  have  wanted  her 
to  done  differently  ;  I  don't  know  as  she  could.  If 
I  ever  come  right  again,  she  won't  have  anything  to 
feel  meeching  about ;  and  if  I  don't,  I  don't  want 
she  should  be  beholden  to  anybody.  And  I  guess 
that 's  the  way  she  feels." 

The  Coreys  in  their  turn  sat  in  judgment  on  the 
fact  which  their  son  felt  bound  to  bring  to  their 
knowledge. 

"  She  has  behaved  very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Corey,  to 
whom  her  son  had  spoken. 

"My  dear,"  said   her  husband,  with  his  laugh, 


432  THE  RISE  OF 

"  she  has  behaved  too  well.  If  she  had  studied  the 
whole  situation  with  the  most  artful  eye  to  its 
mastery,  she  could  not  possibly  have  behaved 
better." 

The  process  of  Lapham's  financial  disintegration 
was  like  the  course  of  some  chronic  disorder,  which 
has  fastened  itself  upon  the  constitution,  but  advances 
with  continual  reliefs,  with  apparent  amelioration, 
and  at  times  seems  not  to  advance  at  all,  when  it 
gives  hope  of  final  recovery  not  only  to  the  sufferer, 
but  to  the  eye  of  science  itself.  There  were  moments 
when  James  Bellingham,  seeing  Lapham  pass  this 
crisis  and  that,  began  to  fancy  that  he  might  pull 
through  altogether  ;  and  at  these  moments,  when  his 
adviser  could  not  oppose  anything  but  experience 
and  probability  to  the  evidence  of  the  fact,  Lapham. 
was  buoyant  with  courage,  and  imparted  his  hopeful 
ness  to  his  household.  Our  theory  of  disaster,  of 
sorrow,  of  affliction,  borrowed  from  the  poets  and 
novelists,  is  that  it  is  incessant ;  but  every  passage  in 
our  own  lives  and  in  the  lives  of  others,  so  far  as  we 
have  witnessed  them,  teaches  us  that  this  is  false. 
The  house  of  mourning  is  decorously  darkened  to  the 
world,  but  within  itself  it  is  also  the  house  of  laugh 
ing.  Bursts  of  gaiety,  as  heartfelt  as  its  grief,  re 
lieve  the  gloom,  and  the  stricken  survivors  have 
their  jests  together,  in  which  the  thought  of  the 
dead  is  tenderly  involved,  and  a  fond  sense,  not 
crazier  than  many  others,  of  sympathy  and  enjoy 
ment  beyond  the  silence,  justifies  the  sunnier  mood 
before  sorrow  rushes  back,  deploring  and  de- 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  433 

spairing,  and  making  it  all  up  again  with  the 
conventional  fitness  of  things.  Lapham's  adver 
sity  had  this  quality  in  common  with  bereave 
ment.  It  was  not  always  like  the  adversity  we 
figure  in  allegory;  it  had  its  moments  of  being 
like  prosperity,  and  if  upon  the  whole  it  was 
continual,  it  was  not  incessant.  Sometimes  there 
was  a  week  of  repeated  reverses,  when  he  had  to 
keep  his  teeth  set  and  to  hold  on  hard  to  all  his 
hopefulness ;  and  then  days  came  of  negative  result 
or  slight  success,  when  he  was  full  of  his  jokes  at 
the  tea-table,  and  wanted  to  go  to  the  theatre,  or  to 
do  something  to  cheer  Penelope  up.  In  some  mira 
culous  way,  by  some  enormous  stroke  of  success 
which  should  eclipse  the  brightest  of  his  past  pro 
sperity,  he  expected  to  do  what  would  reconcile  all 
difficulties,  not  only  in  his  own  affairs,  but  in  hers 
too.  "  You  '11  see,"  he  said  to  his  wife  ;  "  it 's  going 
to  come  out  all  right,  Irene  '11  fix  it  up  with  Bill's 
boy,  and  then  she  '11  be  off  Pen's  mind ;  and  if  things 
go  on  as  they  've  been  going  for  the  last  two  days, 
I  'm  going  to  be  in  a  position  to  do  the  favours  my 
self,  and  Pen  can  feel  that  she 's  makin'  a  sacrifice, 
and  then  I  guess  may  be  she  '11  do  it.  If  things  turn 
out  as  I  expect  now,  and  times  ever  do  get  any  better 
generally,  I  can  show  Corey  that  I  appreciate  his 
offer.  I  can  offer  him  the  partnership  myself  then." 
Even  in  the  other  moods,  which  came  when  every 
thing  had  been  going  wrong,  and  there  seemed  no 
way  out  of  the  net,  there  were  points  of  consolation 
to  Lapham  and  his  wife.  They  rejoiced  that  Irene 
2  E 


434  THE  RISE  OF 

was  safe  beyond  the  range  of  their  anxieties,  and 
they  had  a  proud  satisfaction  that  there  had  been  no 
engagement  between  Corey  and  Penelope,  and  that  it 
was  she  who  had  forbidden  it.  In  the  closeness  of 
interest  and  sympathy  in  which  their  troubles  had 
reunited  them,  they  confessed  to  each  other  that 
nothing  would  have  been  more  galling  to  their  pride 
than  the  idea  that  Lapham  should  not  have  been  able 
to  do  everything  for  his  daughter  that  the  Coreys 
might  have  expected.  Whatever  happened  now, 
the  Coreys  could  not  have  it  to  say  that  the  Lap- 
hams  had  tried  to  bring  any  such  thing  about. 

Bellingham  had  lately  suggested  an  assignment  to 
Lapham,  as  the  best  way  out  of  his  difficulties.  It 
was  evident  that  he  had  not  the  money  to  meet  his 
liabilities  at  present,  and  that  he  could  not  raise  it 
without  ruinous  sacrifices,  that  might  still  end  in 
ruin  after  all  If  he  made  the  assignment,  Belling 
ham  argued,  he  could  gain  time  and  make  terms  ; 
the  state  of  things  generally  would  probably  im 
prove,  since  it  could  not  be  worse,  and  the  market, 
which  he  had  glutted  with  his  paint,  might  recover 
and  he  could  start  again.  Lapham  had  not  agreed  with 
him.  When  his  reverses  first  began  it  had  seemed 
easy  for  him  to  give  up  everything,  to  let  the  people 
he  owed  take  all,  so  only  they  would  let  him  go  out 
with  clean  hands ;  and  he  had  dramatised  this  feeling 
in  his  talk  with  his  wife,  when  they  spoke  together 
of  the  mills  on  the  G.  L.  &  P.  But  ever  since  then 
it  had  been  growing  harder,  and  he  could  not  con 
sent  even  to  seem  to  do  it  now  in  the  proposed 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  435 

assignment.  He  had  not  found  other  men  so  very 
liberal  or  faithful  with  him  ;  a  good  many  of  them 
appeared  to  have  combined  to  hunt  him  down ;  a 
sense  of  enmity  towards  all  his  creditors  asserted  it 
self  in  him  ;  he  asked  himself  why  they  should  not 
suffer  a  little  too.  0  Above  all,  he  shrank  from  the 
publicity  of  the  assignment.  It  was  open  confession 
that  he  had  been  a  fool  in  some  way ;  he  could  not 
bear  to  have  his  family — his  brother  the  judge, 
especially,  to  whom  he  had  always  appeared  the 
soul  of  business  wisdom — think  him  imprudent  or 
stupid.  He  would  make  any  sacrifice  before  it  came 
to  that.  He  determined  in  parting  with  Bellingham 
to  make  the  sacrifice  which  he  had  oftenest  in  his 
mind,  because  it  was  the  hardest,  and  to  sell  his  new 
house.  That  would  cause  the  least  comment.  Most 
people  would  simply  think  that  he  had  got  a  splendid 
offer,  and  with  his  usual  luck  had  made  a  very  good 
thing  of  it ;  others  who  knew  a  little  more  about  him 
would  say  that  he  was  hauling  in  his  horns,  but  they 
could  not  blame  him  ;  a  great  many  other  men  were 
doing  the  same  in  those  hard  times — the  shrewdest 
and  safest  men  :  it  might  even  have  a  good  effect. 
He  went  straight  from  Bellingham's  office  to  the  real- 
estate  broker  in  whose  hands  he  meant  to  put  his 
house,  for  he  was  not  the  sort  of  man  to  shilly-shally 
when  he  had  once  made  up  his  mind.  But  he  found 
ii  hard  to  get  his  voice  up  out  of  his  throat,  when  he 
said  he  guessed  he  would  get  the  broker  to  sell  that 
new  house  of  his  on  the  water  side  of  Beacon.  The 
broker  answered  cheerfully,  yes ;  he  supposed 


436  THE  RISE  OF 

Colonel  Lapham  knew  it  was  a  pretty  dull  time  in 
real  estate  1  and  Lapham  said  yes,  he  knew  that, 
but  he  should  not  sell  at  a  sacrifice,  and  he  did 
not  care  to  have  the  broker  name  him  or  describe 
the  house  definitely  unless  parties  meant  business. 
Again  the  broker  said  yes  ;  and  he  added,  as  a 
joke  Lapham  would  appreciate,  that  he  had  half  a 
dozen  houses  on  the  water  side  of  Beacon,  on  the 
same  terms  ;  that  nobody  wanted  to  be  named  or  to 
have  his  property  described. 

It  did,  in  fact,  comfort  Lapham  a  little  to  find 
himself  in  the  same  boat  with  so  many  others ;  he 
smiled  grimly,  and  said  in  his  turn,  yes,  he  guessed 
that  was  about  the  size  of  it  with  a  good  many 
people.  But  he  had  not  the  heart  to  tell  his  wife 
what  he  had  done,  and  he  sat  taciturn  that  whole 
evening,  without  even  going  over  his  accounts,  and 
went  early  to  bed,  where  he  lay  tossing  half  the  night 
before  he  fell  asleep.  He  slept  at  last  only  upon  the 
promise  he  made  himself  that  he  would  withdraw 
the  house  from  the  broker's  hands ;  but  he  went 
heavily  to  his  own  business  in  the  morning  without 
doing  so.  There  was  no  such  rush,  anyhow,  he  re 
flected  bitterly ;  there  would  be  time  to  do  that  a 
month  later,  probably. 

It  struck  him  with  a  sort  of  dismay  when  a  boy 
came  with  a  note  from  a  broker,  saying  that  a  party 
who  had  been  over  the  house  in  the  fall  had  come  to 
him  to  know  whether  it  could  be  bought,  and  was 
willing  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  house  up  to  the  time 
he  had  seen  it  Lapham  took  refuge  in  trying  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  437 

think  who  the  party  could  be  ;  he  concluded  that  it 
must  have  been  somebody  who  had  gone  over  it  with 
the  architect,  and  he  did  not  like  that ;  but  he  was 
a  \vare  that  this  was  not  an  answer  to  the  broker, 
and  he  wrote  that  he  would  give  him  an  answer  in 
the  morning. 

Now  that  it  had  come  to  the  point,  it  did.  not  seem 
to  him  that  he  could  part  with  the  house.  So  much 
of  his  hope  for  himself  and  his  children  had  gone 
into  it  that  the  thought  of  selling  it  made  him  tremu 
lous  and  sick.  He  could  not  keep  about  his  work 
steadily,  and  with  his  nerves  shaken  by  want  of 
sleep,  and  the  shock  of  this  sudden  and  unexpected 
question,  he  left  his  office  early,  and  went  over  to 
look  at  the  house  and  try  to  bring  himself  to  some 
conclusion  here.  The  long  procession  of  lamps  on 
the  beautiful  street  was  flaring  in  the  clear  red  of  the 
sunset  towards  which  it  marched,  and  Lapham,  with 
a  lump  in  his  throat,  stopped  in  front  of  his  house 
and  looked  at  their  multitude.  They  were  not  merely 
a  part  of  the  landscape  ;  they  were  a  part  of  his  pride 
and  glory,  his  success,  his  triumphant  life's  work 
which  was  fading  into  failure  in  his  helpless  hands. 
He  ground  his  teeth  to  keep  down  that  lump,  but  the 
moisture  in  his  eyes  blurred  the  lamps,  and  the  keen 
pale  crimson  against  which  it  made  them  flicker.  He 
turned  and  looked  up,  as  he  had  so  often  done^  at  the 
window-spaces,  neatly  glazed  for  the  winter  with  white 
linen,  and  recalled  the  night  when  he  had  stopped 
with  Irene  before  the  house,  and  she  had  said  that 
she  should  never  live  there,  and  he  had  tried  to  coax 


438  THE  RISE  OF 

her  into  courage  about  it.  There  was  no  such  facade 
as  that  on  the  whole  street,  to  his  thinking.  Through 
his  long  talks  with  the  architect,  he  had  come  to 
feel  almost  as  intimately  and  fondly  as  the  architect 
himself  the  satisfying  simplicity  of  the  whole  design 
and  the  delicacy  of  its  detail.  It  appealed  to  him  as 
an  exquisite  bit  of  harmony  appeals  to  the  unlearned 
ear,  and  he  recognised  the  difference  between  this 
fine  work  and  the  obstreperous  pretentiousness 
of  the  many  overloaded  house-fronts  which  Sey 
mour  had  made  him  notice  for  his  instruction  else 
where  on  the  Back  Bay.  Now,  in  the  depths  of 
his  gloom,  he  tried  to  think  what  Italian  city  it  was 
where  Seymour  said  he  had  first  got  the  notion  of 
treating  brick- work  in  that  way. 

He  unlocked  the  temporary  door  with  the  key  he 
always  carried,  so  that  he  could  let  himself  in  and 
out  whenever  he  liked,  and  entered  the  house,  dim 
and  very  cold  with  the  accumulated  frigidity  of  the 
whole  winter  in  it,  and  looking  as  if  the  arrest  of 
work  upon  it  had  taken  place  a  thousand  years 
before.  It  smelt  of  the  unpainted  woods  and  the 
clean,  hard  surfaces  of  the  plaster,  where  the  experi 
ments  in  decoration  had  left  it  untouched;  and 
mingled  with  these  odours  was  that  of  some  rank 
pigments  and  metallic  compositions  which  Seymour 
had  used  in  trying  to  realise  a  certain  daring  novelty 
of  finish,  which  had  not  proved  successful.  Above 
all,  Lapham  detected  the  peculiar  odour  of  his  own 
paint,  with  which  the  architect  had  been  greatly 
interested  one  day,  when  Lapham  showed  it  to  him 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  439 

at  the  office.  He  had  asked  Lapham  to  let  him  try 
the  Persis  Brand  in  realising  a  little  idea  he  had  for 
the  finish  of  Mrs.  Lapham's  room.  If  it  succeeded 
they  could  tell  her  what  it  was,  for  a  surprise. 

Lapham  glanced  at  the  bay-window  in  the  re 
ception-room,  where  he  sat  with  his  girls  on  the 
trestles  when  Corey  first  came  by;  and  then  he 
explored  the  whole  house  to  the  attic,  in  the  light 
faintly  admitted  through  the  linen  sashes.  The 
floors  were  strewn  with  shavings  and  chips  which 
the  carpenters  had  left,  and  in  the  music-room  these 
had  been  blown  into  long  irregular  windrows  by  the 
draughts  through  a  wide  rent  in  the  linen  sash, 
Lapham  tried  to  pin  it  up,  but  failed,  and  stood 
looking  out  of  it  over  the  water.  The  ice  had  left 
the  river,  and  the  low  tide  lay  smooth  and  red  in 
the  light  of  the  sunset.  The  Cambridge  flats  showed 
the  sad,  sodden  yellow  of  meadows  stripped  bare 
after  a  long  sleep  under  snow ;  the  hills,  the  naked 
trees,  the  spires  and  roofs  had  a  black  outline,  as  if 
they  were  objects  in  a  landscape  of  the  French 
school. 

The  whim  seized  Lapham  to  test  the  chimney  in 
the  music-room;  it  had  been  tried  in  the  dining- 
room  below,  and  in  his  girls'  fireplaces  above,  but 
here  the  hearth  was  still  clean.  He  gathered  some 
shavings  and  blocks  together,  and  kindled  them,  and 
as  the  flame  mounted  gaily  from  them,  he  pulled  up 
a  nail- keg  which  he  found  there  and  sat  down  to 
watch  it.  Nothing  could  have  been  better;  the 
chimney  was  a  perfect  success;  and  as  Lapham 


440  THE  RISE  OF 

glanced  out  of  the  torn  linen  sash  he  said  to  himself 
that  that  party,  whoever  he  was,  who  had  offered  to 
buy  his  house  might  go  to  the  devil ;  he  would  never 
sell  it  as  long  as  he  had  a  dollar.  He  said  that  he 
should  pull  through  yet ;  and  it  suddenly  came  into 
his  mind  that,  if  he  could  raise  the  money  to  buy  out 
those  West  Virginia  fellows,  he  should  be  all  right, 
and  would  have  the  whole  game  in  his  own  hand. 
He  slapped  himself  on  the  thigh,  and  wondered  that 
he  had  never  thought  of  that  before ;  and  then,  light 
ing  a  cigar  with  a  splinter  from  the  fire,  he  sat  down 
again  to  work  the  scheme  out  in  his  own  mind. 

He  did  not  hear  the  feet  heavily  stamping  up  the 
stairs,  and  coming  towards  the  room  where  he  sat ; 
and  the  policeman  to  whom  the  feet  belonged  had  to 
call  out  to  him,  smoking  at  his  chimney-corner,  with 
his  baxik  turned  to  the  door,  "  Hello  !  what  are  you 
doing  here  ] " 

"What's  that  to  you  ? "  retorted  Lapham,  wheeling 
half  round  on  his  nail-keg. 

"Ill  show  you,"  said  the  officer,  advancing  upon 
him,  and  then  stopping  short  as  he  recognised  him. 
"Why,  Colonel  Lapham!  I  thought  it  was  some 
tramp  got  in  here  ! " 

"  Have  a  cigar  1 "  said  Lapham  hospitably.  "  Sorry 
there  ain't  another  nail -keg." 

The  officer  took  the  cigar.  "  I  '11  smoke  it  outside. 
I've  just  come  on,  and  I  can't  stop.  Tryin'  your 
chimney  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  thought  I  'd  see  how  it  would  draw,  in 
here.  It  seems  to  go  first-rate." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  441 

The  policeman  looked  about  him  with  an  eye  of 
inspection.  "  You  want  to  get  that  linen  window, 
there,  mended  up." 

"  Yes,  I  '11  speak  to  the  builder  about  that.  It  can 
go  for  one  night." 

The  policeman  went  to  the  window  and  failed  to 
pin  the  linen  together  where  Lapham  had  failed 
before.  "  /  can't  fix  it."  He  looked  round  once 
more,  and  saying,  "Well,  good  night,"  went  oub  and 
down  the  stairs. 

Lapham  remained  by  the  fire  till  he  had  smoked 
his  cigar ;  then  he  rose  and  stamped  upon  the  embers 
that  still  burned  with  his  heavy  boots,  and  went 
home.  He  was  very  cheerful  at  supper.  He  told 
his  wife  that  he  guessed  he  had  a  sure  thing  of  it 
now,  and  in  another  twenty-four  hours  he  should  tell 
her  just  how.  He  made  Penelope  go  to  the  theatre 
with  him,  and  when  they  came  out,  after  the  play, 
the  night  was  so  fine  that  he  said  they  must  walk 
round  by  the  new  house  and  take  a  look  at  it  in  the 
starlight.  He  said  he  had  been  there  before  he  came 
home,  and  tried  Seymour's  chimney  in  the  music- 
room,  and  it  worked  like  a  charm. 

As  they  drew  near  Beacon  Street  they  were  aware 
of  unwonted  stir  and  tumult,  and  presently  the  still 
air  transmitted  a  turmoil  of  sound,  through  which  a 
powerful  and  incessant  throbbing  made  itself  felt. 
The  sky  had  reddened  above  them,  and  turning  the 
corner  at  the  Public  Garden,  they  saw  a  black  mass 
of  people  obstructing  the  perspective  of  the  brightly- 
lighted  street,  and  out  of  this  mass  a  half-dozen 


442  THE  RISE  OF 

engines,  whose  strong  heart-beats  had  already  reached 
them,  sent  up  volumes  of  fire-tinged  smoke  and 
steam  from  their  funnels.  Ladders  were  planted 
against  the  fa9ade  of  a  building,  from  the  roof  of 
which  a  mass  of  flame  burnt  smoothly  upward,  except 
where  here  and  there  it  seemed  to  pull  contemp 
tuously  away  from  the  heavy  streams  of  water  which 
the  firemen,  clinging  like  great  beetles  to  their 
ladders,  poured  in  upon  it. 

Lapham  had  no  need  to  walk  down  through  the 
crowd,  gazing  and  gossiping,  with  shouts  and  cries 
and  hysterical  laughter,  before  the  burning  house,  to 
make  sure  that  it  was  his. 

"  I  guess  I  done  it,  Pen,"  was  all  he  said. 

Among  the  people  who  were  looking  at  it  were  a 
party  who  seemed  to  have  run  out  from  dinner  in 
some  neighbouring  house ;  the  ladies  were  fantas 
tically  wrapped  up,  as  if  they  had  flung  on  the  first 
things  they  could  seize. 

"  Isn't  it  perfectly  magnificent ! "  cried  a  pretty  girl. 
"  I  wouldn't  have  missed  it  on  any  account.  Thank 
you  so  much,  Mr.  Symington,  for  bringing  us  out ! " 

"Ah,  I  thought  you'd  like  it,"  said  this  Mr. 
Symington,  who  must  have  been  the  host;  "and 
you  can  enjoy  it  without  the  least  compunction, 
Miss  Delano,  for  I  happen  to  know  that  the  house 
belongs  to  a  man  who  could  afford  to  burn  one  up 
for  you  once  a  year." 

"  Oh,  do  you  think  he  would,  if  I  came  again  ? " 

"I  haven't  the  least  doubt  of  it.  We  don't  do 
things  by  halves  in  Boston." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  443 

"He  ought  to  have  had  a  coat  of  his  noncom- 
bustible  paint  on  it,"  said  another  gentleman  of  the 
party. 

Penelope  pulled  her  father  away  toward  the  first 
carriage  she  could  reach  of  a  number  that  had  driven 
up.  "Here,  father  !  get  into  this." 

"No,  no;  I  couldn't  ride,"  he  answered  heavily, 
and  he  walked  home  in  silence.  He  greeted  his  wife 
with,  "  Well,  Pers^s,  our  house  is  gone  !  And  I  guess 
I  set  it  on  fire  myself ; "  and  while  he  rummaged 
among  the  papers  in  his  desk,  still  with  his  coat  and 
hat  on,  his  wife  got  the  facts  as  she  could  from 
Penelope.  She  did  not  reproach  him.  Here  was  a 
case  in  which  his  self-reproach  must  be  sufficiently 
sharp  without  any  edge  from  her.  Besides,  her 
mind  was  full  of  a  terrible  thought. 

"O  Silas,"  she  faltered,  "they'll  think  you  set 
it  on  fire  to  get  the  insurance  ! " 

Lapham  was  staring  at  a  paper  which  he  held  in 
his  hand.  "I  had  a  builder's  risk  on  it,  but  it 
expired  last  week.  It 's  a  dead  loss." 

"Oh,  thank  the  merciful  Lord  !"  cried  his  wife. 

"  Merciful ! "  said  Lapham.  "  Well,  it 's  a  queer 
way  of  showing  it." 

He  went  to  bed,  and  fell  into  the  deep  sleep 
which  sometimes  follows  a  great  moral  shock.  It 
was  perhaps  rather  a  torpor  than  a  sleep. 


XXV. 

t 

LAPHAM  awoke  confused,  and  in  a  kind  of  remote 
ness  from  the  loss  of  the  night  before,  through 
which  it  loomed  mistily.  But  before  he  lifted  his 
head  from  the  pillow,  it  gathered  substance  and 
weight  against  which  it  needed  all  his  will  to  bear 
up  and  live.  In  that  moment  he  wished  that  he  had 
not  wakened,  that  he  might  never  have  wakened ; 
but  he  rose,  and  faced  the  day  and  its  cares. 

The  morning  papers  brought  the  report  of  the  fire, 
and  the  conjectured  loss.  The  reporters  somehow 
had  found  out  the  fact  that  the  loss  fell  entirely 
upon  Lapham ;  they  lighted  up  the  hackneyed  char 
acter  of  their  statements  with  the  picturesque 
interest  of  the  coincidence  that  the  policy  had 
expired  only  the  week  before ;  heaven  knows  how 
they  knew  it,  They  said  that  nothing  remained  of 
the  building  but  the  walls ;  and  Lapham,  on  his  way 
to  business,  walked  up  past  the  smoke-stained  shell. 
The  windows  looked  like  the  eye-sockets  of  a  skull 
down  upon  the  blackened  and  trampled  snow  of  the 
street ;  the  pavement  was  a  sheet  of  ice,  and  the 
water  from  the  engines  had  frozen,  like  streams  of 


THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM.  445 

tears,  down  the  face  of  the  house,  and  hung  in  icy 
tags  from  the  window-sills  and  copings. 

He  gathered  himself  up  as  well  as  he  could,  and 
went  on  to  his  office.  The  chance  of  retrieval  that 
had  flashed  upon  him,  as  he  sat  smoking  by  that 
ruined  hearth  the  evening  before,  stood  him  in  such 
stead  now  as  a  sole  hope  may ;  and  he  said  to  him 
self  that,  having  resolved  not  to  sell  his  house,  he 
was  no  more  crippled  by  its  loss  than  he  would  have 
been  by  letting  his  money  lie  idle  in  it ;  what  he 
might  have  raised  by  mortgage  on  it  could  be  made 
up  in  some  other  way ;  and  if  they  would  sell  he 
could  still  buy  out  the  whole  business  of  that  West 
Virginia  company,  mines,  plant,  stock  on  hand>  good 
will,  and  everything,  and  unite  it  with  his  own.  He 
went  early  in  the  afternoon  to  see  Bellingham, 
whose  expressions  of  condolence  for  his  loss  he  cut 
short  with  as  much  politeness  as  he  knew  how  to 
throw  into  his  impatience.  Bellingham  seemed  at 
first  a  little  dazzled  with  the  splendid  courage  of  his 
scheme ;  it  was  certainly  fine  in  its  way ;  but  then 
he  began  to  have  his  misgivings. 

"  I  happen  to  know  that  they  haven't  got  much 
money  behind  them,"  urged  Lapham.  "They'll 
jump  at  an  offer." 

Bellingham  shook  his  head.  "  If  they  can  show 
profit  on  the  old  manufacture,  and  prove  they  can 
make  their  paint  still  cheaper  and  better  hereafter, 
they  can  have  all  the  money  they  want.  And  it 
will  be  very  difficult  for  you  to  raise  it  if  you're 
threatened  by  them.  With  that  competition,  you 


446  THE  RISE  OF 

know  what  your  plant  at  Lapham  would  be  worth, 
and  what  the  shrinkage  on  your  manufactured  stock 
would  be.  Better  sell  out  to  them,"  he  concluded, 
"  if  they  will  buy." 

"  There  ain't  money  enough  in  this  country  to  buy 
out  my  paint,"  said  Lapham,  buttoning  up  his  coat 
in  a  quiver  of  resentment.  "  Good  afternoon,  sir.*' 
Men  are  but  grown-up  boys  after  all.  Bellingham 
watched  this  perversely  proud  and  obstinate  child 
fling  petulantly  out  of  his  door,  and  felt  a  sympathy 
for  him  which  was  as  truly  kind  as  it  was  helpless. 

But  Lapham  was  beginning  to  see  through  Belling 
ham,  as  he  believed.  Bellingham  was,  in  his  way, 
part  of  that  conspiracy  by  which  Lapham's  creditors 
were  trying  to  drive  him  to  the  wall.  More  than 
ever  now  he  was  glad  that  he  had  nothing  to  do 
with  that  cold-hearted,  self-conceited  race,  and  that 
the  favours  so  far  were  all  from  his  side.  He  was 
more  than  ever  determined  to  show  them,  every  one 
of  them,  high  and  low,  that  he  and  his  children 
could  get  along  without  them,  and  prosper  and 
triumph  without  them.  He  said  to  himself  that  if 
Penelope  were  engaged  to  Corey  that  very  minute, 
he  would  make  her  break  with  him. 

He  knew  what  he  should  do  now,  and  he  was 
going  to  do  it  without  loss  of  time.  He  was  going 
on  to  New  York  to  see  those  West  Virginia  people ; 
they  had  their  principal  office  there,  and  he  intended 
to  get  at  their  ideas,  and  then  he  intended  to  make 
them  an  offer.  He  managed  this  business  better 
than  could  possibly  have  been  expected  of  a  man  in 
his  impassioned  mood.  But  when  it  came  really  to 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  447 

business,  his  practical  instincts,  alert  and  wary,  came 
to  his  aid  against  the  passions  that  lay  in  wait  to 
betray  after  they  ceased  to  dominate  him.  He  found 
the  West  Virginians  full  of  zeal  and  hope,  but  in  ten 
minutes  he  knew  that  they  had  not  yet  tested  their 
strength  in  the  money  market,  and  had  not  ascer 
tained  how  much  or  how  little  capital  they  could 
command.  Lapham  himself,  if  he  had  had  so  much, 
would  not  have  hesitated  to  put  a  million  dollars  into 
their  business.  He  saw,  as  they  did  not  see,  that 
they  had  the  game  in  their  own  hands,  and  that 
if  they  could  raise  the  money  to  extend  their  busi 
ness,  they  could  ruin  him.  It  was  only  a  question 
of  time,  and  he  was  on  the  ground  first.  He  frankly 
proposed  a  union  of  their  interests.  He  admitted 
that  they  had  a  good  thing,  and  that  he  should  have 
to  fight  them  hard ;  but  he  meant  to  fight  them  to 
the  death  unless  they  could  come  to  some  sort  of 
terms.  Now,  the  question  was  whether  they  had 
better  go  on  and  make  a  heavy  loss  for  both  sides 
by  competition,  or  whether  they  had  better  form  a 
partnership  to  run  both  paints  and  command  the 
whole  market.  Lapham  made  them  three  proposi 
tions,  each  of  which  was  fair  and  open :  to  sell  out 
to  them  altogether ;  to  buy  them  out  altogether ;  to 
join  facilities  and  forces  with  them,  and  go  on  in  an 
invulnerable  alliance.  Let  them  name  a  figure  at 
which  they  would  buy,  a  figure  at  which  they  would 
sell,  a  figure  at  which  they  would  combine, — or,  in 
other  words,  the  amount  of  capital  they  needed. 

They  talked  all  day,  going  out  to  lunch  together 
at  the  Astor  House,  and  sitting  with  their  knees 


448  THE  RISE  OF 

against  the  counter  on  a  row  of  stools  before  it  for 
fifteen  minutes  of  reflection  and  deglutition,  with 
their  hats  on,  and  then  returning  to  the  basement 
from  which  they  emerged.  The  West  Virginia 
company's  name  was  lettered  in  gilt  on  the  wide 
low  window,  and  its  paint,  in  the  form  of  ore,  burnt, 
and  mixed,  formed  a  display  on  the  window  shelf. 
Lapham  examined  it  and  praised  it ;  from  time  to 
time  they  all  recurred  to  it  together ;  they  sent  out 
for  some  of  Lapham's  paint  and  compared  it,  the 
West  Virginians  admitting  its  former  superiority. 
They  were  young  fellows,  and  country  persons,  like 
Lapham,  by  origin,  and  they  looked  out  with  the 
same  amused,  undaunted  provincial  eyes  at  the 
myriad  metropolitan  legs  passing  on  the  pavement 
above  the  level  of  their  window.  He  got  on  well 
with  them.  At  last,  they  said  what  they  would  do. 
They  said  it  was  nonsense  to  talk  of  buying  Lapham 
out,  for  they  had  not  the  money ;  and  as  for  selling 
out,  they  would  not  do  it,  for  they  knew  they  had  a 
big  thing.  But  they  would  as  soon  use  his  capital 
to  develop  it  as  anybody  else's,  and  if  he  could  put 
in  a  certain  sum  for  this  purpose,  they  would  go  in 
with  him.  He  should  run  the  works  at  Lapham 
and  manage  the  business  in  Boston,  and  they  would 
run  the  works  at  Kanawha  Falls  and  manage  the 
business  in  New  York.  The  two  brothers  with 
whom  Lapham  talked  named  their  figure,  subject 
to  the  approval  of  another  brother  at  Kanawha 
Falls,  to  whom  they  would  write,  and  who  would 
telegraph  his  answer,  so  that  Lapham  could  have  it 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  449 

inside  of  three  days.  But  they  felt  perfectly  sure 
that  he  would  approve ;  and  Lapham  started  back 
on  the  eleven  o'clock  train  with  an  elation  that 
gradually  left  him  as  he  drew  near  Boston,  where 
the  difficulties  of  raising  this  sum  were  to  be  over 
come.  It  seemed  to  him,  then,  that  those  fellows 
had  put  it  up  on  him  pretty  steep,  but  he  owned  to 
himself  that  they  had  a  sure  thing,  and  that  they 
were  right  in  believing  they  could  raise  the  same 
sum  elsewhere ;  it  would  take  all  of  it,  he  admitted, 
to  make  their  paint  pay  on  the  scale  they  had  the 
right  to  expect.  At  their  age,  he  would  not  have 
done  differently ;  but  when  he  emerged,  old,  sore, 
and  sleep-broken,  from  the  sleeping-car  in  the 
Albany  depot  at  Boston,  he  wished  with  a  pathetic 
self-pity  that  they  knew  how  a  man  felt  at  his  age. 
A  year  ago,  six  months  ago,  he  would  have  laughed 
at  the  notion  that  it  would  be  hard  to  raise  the  money. 
But  he  thought  ruefully  of  that  immense  stock  of 
paint  on  hand,  which  was  noAV  a  drug  in  the  market, 
of  his  losses  by  Rogers  and  by  the  failures  of  other 
men,  of  the  fire  that  had  licked  up  so  many 
thousands  in  a  few  hours ;  he  thought  with  bitter 
ness  of  the  tens  of  thousands  that  he  had  gambled 
away  in  stocks,  and  of  the  commissions  that  the 
brokers  had  pocketed  whether  he  won  or  lost ;  and 
he  could  not  think  of  any  securities  on  which  he 
could  borrow,  except  his  house  in  Nankeen  Square, 
or  the  mine  and  works  at  Lapham.  He  set  his 
teeth  in  helpless  rage  when  he  thought  of  that 
property  out  on  the  G.  L.  &  P.,  that  ought  to  be 
2F 


450  THE  RISE  OF 

worth  so  much,  and  was  worth  so  little  if  the  Road 
chose  to  say  so. 

He  did  not  go  home,  but  spent  most  of  the  day 
shining  round,  as  he  would  have  expressed  it,  and 
trying  to  see  if  he  could  raise  the  money.  But  he 
found  that  people  of  whom  he  hoped  to  get  it  were 
in  the  conspiracy  which  had  been  formed  to  drive 
him  to  the  Avail.  Somehow,  there  seemed  a  sense  of 
his  embarrassments  abroad.  Nobody  wanted  to 
lend  money  on  the  plant  at  Lapham  without  taking 
time  to  look  into  the  state  of  the  business;  but 
Lapham  had  no  time  to  give,  and  he  knew  that  the 
state  of  the  business  would  not  bear  looking  into. 
He  could  raise  fifteen  thousand  on  his  Nankeen 
Square  house,  and  another  fifteen  on  his  Beacon 
Street  lot,  and  this  was  all  that  a  man  who  was 
worth  a  million  by  rights  could  do !  He  said  a 
million,  and  he  said  it  in  defiance  of  Bellingham, 
who  had  subjected  his  figures  to  an  analysis  which 
wounded  Lapham  more  than  he  chose  to  show  at  the 
time,  for  it  proved  that  he  was  not  so  rich  and  not 
so  wise  as  he  had  seemed.  His  hurt  vanity  forbade 
him  to  go  to  Bellingham  now  for  help  or  advice ; 
and  if  he  could  have  brought  himself  to  ask  his 
brothers  for  money,  it  would  have  been  useless ;  they 
were  simply  well-to-do  Western  people,  but  not 
capitalists  on  the  scale  he  required. 

Lapham  stood  in  the  isolation  to  which  adversity 
so  often  seems  to  bring  men.  When  its  test  was 
applied,  practically  or  theoretically,  to  all  those  who 
had  seemed  his  friends,  there  was  none  who  bore  it ; 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  451 

and  he  thought  with  bitter  self-contempt  of  the 
people  whom  he  had  befriended  in  their  time  of  need. 
He  said  to  himself  that  he  had  been  a  fool  for  that ; 
and  he  scorned  himself  for  certain  acts  of  scrupulosity 
by  which  he  had  lost  money  in  the  past.  Seeing  the 
moral  forces  all  arrayed  against  him,  Lapham  said 
that  he  would  like  to  have  the  chance  offered  him  to 
get  even  with  them  again ;  he  thought  he  should 
know  how  to  look  out  for  himself.  As  he  understood 
it,  he  had  several  days  to  turn  about  in,  and  he  did 
not  let  one  day's  failure  dishearten  him.  The  morn 
ing  after  his  return  he  had,  in  fact,  a  gleam  of  luck 
that  gave  him  the  greatest  encouragement  for  the 
moment.  A  man  came  in  to  inquire  about  one  of 
Rogers's  wild-cat  patents,  as  Lapham  called  them,  and 
ended  by  buying  it.  He  got  it,  of  course,  for  less 
than  Lapham  took  it  for,  but  Lapham  was  glad  to  be 
rid  of  it  for  something,  when  he  had  thought  it 
worth  nothing ;  and  when  the  transaction  was  closed, 
he  asked  the  purchaser  rather  eagerly  if  he  knew 
where  Rogers  was ;  it  was  Lapham's  secret  belief 
that  Rogers  had  found  there  was  money  in  the  thing, 
and  had  sent  the  man  to  buy  it.  But  it  appeared 
that  this  was  a  mistake  ;  the  man  had  not  come  from 
Rogers,  but  had  heard  of  the  patent  in  another  way ; 
and  Lapham  was  astonished  in  the  afternoon,  when 
his  boy  came  to  tell  him  that  Roger's  was  in  the 
outer  office,  and  wished  to  speak  with  him. 

"  All  right,"  said  Lapham,  and  he  could  not  com 
mand  at  once  the  severity  for  the  reception  of 
Rogers  which  he  would  have  liked  to  use.  He  found 


452  THE  RISE  OF 

himself,  in  fact,  so  much  relaxed  towards  him  by  the 
morning's  touch  of  prosperity  that  he  asked  him  to 
sit  down,  gruffly,  of  course,  but  distinctly ;  and  when 
Rogers  said  in  his  lifeless  way,  and  with  the  effect 
of  keeping  his  appointment  of  a  month  before, 
"  Those  English  parties  are  in  town,  and  would  like 
to  talk  with  you  in  reference  to  the  mills,"  Lapham 
did  not  turn  him  out-of-doors. 

He  sat  looking  at  him,  and  trying  to  make  out 
what  Rogers  was  after ;  for  he  did  not  believe  that 
the  English  parties,  if  they  existed,  had  any  notion 
of  buying  his  mills. 

"  What  if  they  are  not  for  sale  ? "  he  asked.  "  You 
know  that  I've  been  expecting  an  offer  from  the 
G.  L.  &  P." 

"I've  kept  watch  of  that.  They  haven't  made 
you  any  offer,"  said  Rogers  quietly. 

"  And  did  you  think,"  demanded  Lapham,  firing 
up,  "  that  I  would  turn  them  in  on  somebody  else 
as  you  turned  them  in  on  me,  when  the  chances  are 
that  they  won't  be  worth  ten  cents  on  the  dollar  six 
months  from  now  1 " 

"  I  didn't  know  what  you  would  do,"  said  Rogers 
non-committally.  "  I  Ve  come  here  to  tell  you  that 
these  parties  stand  ready  to  take  the  mills  off  your 
hands  at  a  fair  valuation — at  the  value  I  put  upon 
them  when  I  turned  them  in." 

"  I  don't  believe  you  ! "  cried  Lapham  brutally,  but 
a  wild  predatory  hope  made  his  heart  leap  so  that  it 
seemed  to  turn  over  in  his  breast.  "  I  don't  believe 
there  are  any  such  parties  to  begin  with ;  and  in  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  453 

next  place,  I  don't  believe  they  would  buy  at  any 
such  figure ;  unless — unless  you  Ve  lied  to  them,  as 
you  Ve  lied  to  me.  Did  you  tell  them  about  the 
G.  L.  &P.  ?" 

Kogers  looked  compassionately  at  him,  but  he 
answered,  with  unvaried  dryness,  "I  did  not  think 
that  necessary." 

Lapham  had  expected  this  answer,  and  he  had 
expected  or  intended  to  break  out  in  furious  denun 
ciation  of  Rogers  when  he  got  it ;  but  he  only  found 
himself  saying,  in  a  sort  of  baffled  gasp,  "  I  wonder 
what  your  game  is  ! " 

Rogers  did  not  reply  categorically,  but  he  an 
swered,  with  his  impartial  calm,  and  as  if  Lapham 
had  said  nothing  to  indicate  that  he  differed  at  all 
with  him  as  to  disposing  of  the  property  in  the 
way  he  had  suggested :  "  If  we  should  succeed  in 
selling,  I  should  be  able  to  repay  you  your  loans, 
and  should  have  a  little  capital  for  a  scheme  that  I 
think  of  going  into." 

"  And  do  you  think  that  I  am  going  to  steal  these 
men's  money  to  help  you  plunder  somebody  in  a  new 
scheme  ? "  answered  Lapham.  The  sneer  was  on 
behalf  of  virtue,  but  it  was  still  a  sneer. 

"  I  suppose  the  money  would  be  useful  to  you  too, 
just  now." 

"Why?" 

"Because  I  know  that  you  have  been  trying  to 
borrow." 

At  this  proof  of  wicked  omniscience  in  Rogers, 
the  question  whether  he  had  better  not  regard  the 


454  THE  RISE  OF 

affair  as  a  fatality,  and  yield  to  his  destiny,  flashed 
upon  Lapham;  but  he  answered,  "I  shall  want 
money  a  great  deal  worse  than  I  've  ever  wanted  it 
yet,  before  I  go  into  such  rascally  business  with 
you.  Don't  you  know  that  we  might  as  well  knock 
these  parties  down  on  the  street,  and  take  the  money 
out  of  their  pockets  ?" 

"  They  have  come  on,"  answered  Rogers,  "  from 
Portland  to  see  you.  I  expected  them  some  weeks 
ago,  but  they  disappointed  me.  They  arrived  on  the 
Circassian  last  night ;  they  expected  to  have  got  in 
five  days  ago,  but  the  passage  was  very  stormy." 

"  Where  are  they  ? "  asked  Lapham,  with  helpless 
irrelevance,  and  feeling  himself  somehow  drifted 
from  his  moorings  by  Rogers's  shipping  intelligence. 

"  They  are  at  Young's.  I  told  them  we  would  call 
upon  them  after  dinner  this  evening;  they  dine  late." 

"Oh,  you  did,  did  you1?"  asked  Lapham,  trying 
to  drop  another  anchor  for  a  fresh  clutch  on  his 
underlying  principles.  "  Well,  now,  you  go  and  tell 
them  that  I  said  I  wouldn't  come." 

"  Their  stay  is  limited,"  remarked  Rogers.  "  I 
mentioned  this  evening  because  they  were  not  cer 
tain  they  could  remain  over  another  night.  But  if 
to-morrow  would  suit  you  better " 

"  Tell  'em  I  shan't  come  at  all,"  roared  Lapham, 
as  much  in  terror  as  defiance,  for  he  felt  his  anchor 
dragging.  "  Tell  'em  I  shan't  come  at  all !  Do  you 
understand  that1!" 

"I  don't  see  why  you  should  stickle  as  to  the 
matter  of  going  to  them,"  said  Rogers ;  "  but  if  you 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  455 

think  it  will  be  better  to  have  them  approach  you, 
I  suppose  I  can  bring  them  to  you." 

"  No,  you  can't !  I  shan't  let  you  !  I  shan't  see 
them !  I  shan't  have  anything  to  do  with  them. 
Now  do  you  understand  ]" 

"  I  inferred  from  our  last  interview,"  persisted 
Eogers,  unmoved  by  all  this  violent  demonstration 
of  Lapham's,  "  that  you  wished  to  meet  these  parties. 
You  told  me  that  you  would  give  me  time  to  pro 
duce  them;  and  I  have  promised  them  that  you 
would  meet  them ;  I  have  committed  myself." 

It  was  true  that  Lapham  had  defied  Rogers  to 
bring  on  his  men,  and  had  implied  his  willingness  to 
negotiate  with  them.  That  was  before  he  had  talked 
the  matter  over  with  his  wife,  and  perceived  his 
moral  responsibility  in  it ;  even  she  had  not  seen  this 
at  once.  He  could  not  enter  into  this  explanation 
with  Rogers ;  he  could  only  say,  "  I  said  I  'd  give 
you  twenty-four  hours  to  prove  yourself  a  liar,  and 
you  did  it.  I  didn't  say  twenty-four  days." 

"I  don't  see  the  difference,"  returned  Rogers.  "The 
parties  are  here  now,  and  that  proves  that  I  was 
acting  in  good  faith  at  the  time.  There  has  been  no 
change  in  the  posture  of  affairs.  You  don't  know  now 
any  more  than  you  knew  then  that  the  G.  L.  &  P. 
is  going  to  want  the  property.  If  there 's  any  dif 
ference,  it 's  in  f  avo*ur  of  the  Road's  having  changed 
its  mind." 

There  was  some  sense  in  this,  and  Lapham  felt  it 
— felt  it  only  too  eagerly,  as  he  recognised  the  next 
instant. 


456  THE  RISE  OF 

Kogers  went  on  quietly  :  "  You  're  not  obliged  to 
sell  to  these  parties  when  you  meet  them ;  but  you  've 
allowed  me  to  commit  myself  to  them  by  the  promise 
that  you  would  talk  with  them." 

"  'Twan't  a  promise,"  said  Lapham. 

"It  was  the  same  thing;  they  have  come  out 
from  England  on  my  guaranty  that  there  was  such 
and  such  an  opening  for  their  capital ;  and  now  what 
am  I  to  say  to  them  ?  It  places  me  in  a  ridiculous 
position."  Rogers  urged  his  grievance  calmly, 
almost  impersonally,  making  his  appeal  to  Lapham's 
sense  of  justice.  "  I  can't  go  back  to  those  parties 
and  tell  them  you  won't  see  them.  It 's  no  answer 
to  make.  They  've  got  a  right  to  know  why  you 
won't  see  them." 

"Very  well,  then!"  cried  Lapham;  "I'll  come 
and  tell  them  why.  Who  shall  I  ask  for  1  When 
shall  I  be  there?" 

"At  eight  o'clock,  please,"  said  Rogers,  rising, 
without  apparent  alarm  at  his  threat,  if  it  was  a 
threat.  "And  ask  for  me;  I've  taken  a  room  at 
the  hotel  for  the  present." 

"  I  won't  keep  you  five  minutes  when  I  get  there," 
said  Lapham;  but  he  did  not  come  away  till  ten 
o'clock 

It  appeared  to  him  as  if  the  very  devil  was  in  it. 
The  Englishmen  treated  his  downright  refusal  to  sell 
as  a  piece  of  bluff,  and  talked  on  as  though  it  were 
merely  the  opening  of  the  negotiation.  When  he 
became  plain  with  them  in  his  anger,  and  told  them 
why  he  would  not  sell,  they  seemed  to  have  been 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  457 

prepared  for  this  as  a  stroke  of  business,  and  were 
ready  to  meet  it. 

"  Has  this  fellow,"  he  demanded,  twisting  his  head 
in  the  direction  of  Kogers,  but  disdaining  to  notice 
him  otherwise,  "  been  telling  you  that  it 's  part  of 
my  game  to  say  this  1  Well,  sir,  I  can  tell  you,  on 
my  side,  that  there  isn't  a  slipperier  rascal  unhung 
in  America  than  Milton  K.  Rogers  ! " 

The  Englishmen  treated  this  as  a  piece  of  genuine 
American  humour,  and  returned  to  the  charge  with 
unabated  courage.  They  owned  now,  that  a  person 
interested  with  them  had  been  out  to  look  at  the 
property,  and  that  they  were  satisfied  with  the 
appearance  of  things.  They  developed  further  the 
fact  that  they  were  not  acting  solely,  or  even 
principally,  in  their  own  behalf,  but  were  the  agents 
of  people  in  England  who  had  projected  the  coloni 
sation  of  a  sort  of  community  on  the  spot,  some 
what  after  the  plan  of  other  English  dreamers,  and 
that  they  were  satisfied,  from  a  careful  inspection, 
that  the  resources  and  facilities  were  those  best 
calculated  to  develop  the  energy  and  enterprise  of 
the  proposed  community.  They  were  prepared  to 
meet  Mr.  Lapham — Colonel,  they  begged  his  pardon, 
at  the  instance  of  Rogers — at  any  reasonable  figure, 
and  were  quite  willing  to  assume  the  risks  he  had 
pointed  out.  Something  in  the  eyes  of  these  men, 
something  that  lurked  at  an  infinite  depth  below 
their  speech,  and  was  not  really  in  their  eyes  when 
Lapham  looked  again,  had  flashed  through  him  a 
sense  of  treachery  in  them.  He  had  thought  them 


458  THE  RISE  OF 

the  dupes  of  Rogers  ;  but  in  that  brief  instant  he 
had  seen  them — or  thought  he  had  seen  them — his 
accomplices,  ready  to  betray  the  interests  of  which 
they  went  on  to  speak  with  a  certain  comfortable 
jocosity,  and  a  certain  incredulous  slight  of  his 
show  of  integrity.  It  was  a  deeper  game  than 
Lapham  was  used  to"  and  he  sat  looking  with  a  sort 
of  admiration  from  one  Englishman  to  the  other, 
and  then  to  Eogers,  who  maintained  an  exterior 
of  modest  neutrality,  and  whose  air  said,  "  I  have 
brought  you  gentlemen  together  as  the  friend  of  all 
parties,  and  I  now  leave  you  to  settle  it  among  your 
selves.  I  ask  nothing,  and  expect  nothing,  except 
the  small  sum  which  shall  accrue  .to  me  after  the 
discharge  of  my  obligations  to  Colonel  Lapham." 

While  Rogers's  presence  expressed  this,  one  of  the 
Englishmen  was  saying,  "And  if  you  have  any 
scruple  in  allowin'  us  to  assume  this  risk,  Colonel 
Lapham,  perhaps  you  can  console  yourself  with  the 
fact  that  the  loss,  if  there  is  to  be  any,  will  fall  upon 
people  who  are  able  to  bear  it — upon  an  association 
of  rich  and  charitable  people.  But  we  're  quite  satis 
fied  there  will  be  no  loss,"  he  added  savingly.  "  All 
you  have  to  do  is  to  name  your  price,  and  we  will 
do  our  best  to  meet  it." 

There  was  nothing  in  the  Englishman's  sophistry 
very  shocking  to  Lapham.  It  addressed  itself  in 
him  to  that  easy-going,  not  evilly  Lntentioned, 
potential  immorality  which  regards  common  property 
as  common  prey,  and  gives  us  the  most  corrupt 
municipal  governments  under  the  sun — which  makes 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  459 

the  poorest  voter,  when  he  has  tricked  into  place, 
as  unscrupulous  in  regard  to  others'  money  as  an 
hereditary  prince.  Lapham  met  the  Englishman's 
eye,  and  with  difficulty  kept  himself  from  winking. 
Then  he  looked  away,  and  tried  to  find  out  where 
he  stood,  or  what  he  wanted  to  do.  He  could 
hardly  tell.  He  had  expected  to  come  into  that 
room  and  unmask  Rogers,  and  have  it  over.  But 
he  had  unmasked  Rogers  without  any  effect  what 
ever,  and  the  play  had  only  begun.  He  had  a 
whimsical  and  sarcastic  sense  of  its  being  very 
different  from  the  plays  at  the  theatre.  He  could 
not  get  up  and  go  away  in  silent  contempt;  he 
could  not  tell  the  Englishmen  that  he  believed  them 
a  pair  of  scoundrels  and  should  have  nothing  to  do 
with  them;  he  could  no  longer  treat  them  as  in 
nocent  dupes.  He  remained  baffled  and  perplexed, 
and  the  one  who  had  not  spoken  hitherto  remarked — 

"  Of  course  we  shan't  'aggie  about  a  few  pound, 
more  or  less.  If  Colonel  Lapham's  figure  should  be 
a  little  larger  than  ours,  I  've  no  doubt  'e  '11  not  be 
too  'ard  upon  us  in  the  end." 

Lapham  appreciated  all  the  intent  of  this  subtle 
suggestion,  and  understood  as  plainly  as  if  it  had 
been  said  in  so  many  words,  that  if  they  paid  him  a 
larger  price,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  a  certain 
portion  of  the  purchase-money  was  to  return  to  their 
own  hands.  Still  he  could  not  move ;  and  it  seemed 
to  him  that  he  could  not  speak. 

"  Ring  that  bell,  Mr.  Rogers,"  said  the  English 
man  who  had  last  spoken,  glancing  at  the  annuncia- 


460  THE  RISE  OF 

tor  button  in  the  wall  near  Rogers's  head,  "and 
'ave  up  something  'ot,  can't  you  ?  I  should  like  to 
wet  me  w'istle,  as  you  say  'ere,  and  Colonel  Lapham 
seems  to  find  it  rather  dry  work." 

Lapham  jumped  to  his  feet,  and  buttoned  his 
overcoat  about  him.  He  remembered  with  terror 
the  dinner  at  Corey's  where  he  had  disgraced  and 
betrayed  himself,  and  if  he  went  into  this  thing 
at  all,  he  was  going  into  it  sober.  "  I  can't  stop,"  he 
said,  "I  must  be  going." 

"But  you  haven't  given  us  an  answer  yet,  Mr. 
Lapham,"  said  the  first  Englishman  with  a  successful 
show  of  dignified  surprise. 

"The  only  answer  I  can  give  you  now  is,  No," 
said  Lapham.  "  If  you  want  another,  you  must  let 
me  have  time  to  think  it  over." 

"  But  W  much  time  ? "  said  the  other  English 
man.  "  We  're  pressed  for  time  ourselves,  and  we 
hoped  for  an  answer — 'oped  for  a  hanswer,"  he 
corrected  himself,  "at  once.  That  was  our  under- 
standin'  with  Mr.  Rogers." 

"  I  can't  let  you  know  till  morning,  anyway,"  said 
Lapham,  and  he  went  out,  as  his  custom  often  was, 
without  any  parting  salutation.  He  thought  Rogers 
might  try  to  detain  him ;  but  Rogers  had  remained 
seated  when  the  others  got  to  their  feet,  and  paid  no 
attention  to  his  departure. 

He  walked  out  into  the  night  air,  every  pulse 
throbbing  with  the  strong  temptation.  He  knew 
very  well  those  men  would  wait,  and  gladly  wait,  till 
the  morning,  and  that  the  whole  affair  was  in  his 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  461 

hands.  It  made  him  groan  in  spirit  to  think  that  it 
was.  If  he  had  hoped  that  some  chance  might  take 
the  decision  from  him,  there  was  no  such  chance,  in 
the  present  or  future,  that  he  could  see.  It  was  for 
him  alone  to  commit  this  rascality — if  it  was  a 
rascality — or  not. 

He  walked  all  the  way  home,  letting  one  car  after 
another  pass  him  on  the  street,  now  so  empty  of 
other  passing,  and  it  was  almost  eleven  o'clock  when 
he  reached  home.-  A  carriage  stood  before  his  house, 
and  Avhen  he  let  himself  in  with  his  key,  he  heard 
talking  in  the  family-room.  It  came  into  his  head 
that  Irene  had  got  back  unexpectedly,  and  that  the 
sight  of  her  was  somehow  going  to  make  it  harden 
for  him ;  then  he  thought  it  might  be  Corey,  come 
upon  some  desperate  pretext  to  see  Penelope ;  but 
when  he  opened  the  door  he  saw,  with  a  certain 
absence  of  surprise,  that  it  was  Rogers.  He  was 
standing  with  his  back  to  the  fireplace,  talking  to 
Mrs.  Lapham,  and  he  had  been  shedding  tears ;  dry 
tears  they  seemed,  and  they  had  left  a  sort  of  sandy, 
glistening  trace  on  his  cheeks.  Apparently  he  was 
not  ashamed  of  them,  for  the  expression  with  which 
he  met  Lapham  was  that  of  a  man  making  a  de 
sperate  appeal  in  his  own  cause,  which  was  identical 
with  that  of  humanity,  if  not  that  of  justice. 

"I  some  expected,"  began  Rogers,  "to  find  you 
here " 

"No,  you  didn't,"  interrupted  Lapham;  "you 
wanted  to  come  here  and  make  a  poor  mouth  to 
Mrs.  Lapham  before  I  got  home." 


462  THE  RISE  OF 

"I  knew  that  Mrs.  Lapham  would  know  what 
was  going  on,"  said  Rogers  more  candidly,  but  not 
more  virtuously,  for  that  he  could  not,  "and  I 
wished  her  to  understand  a  point  that  I  hadn't  put 
to  you  at  the  hotel,  and  that  I  want  you  should 
consider.  And  I  want  you  should  consider  me  a 
little  in  this  business  too ;  you  're  not  the  only  one 
that 's  concerned,  I  tell  you^  and  I  've  been  telling 
Mrs.  Lapham  that  it 's  my  one  chance ;  that  if  you 
don't  meet  me  on  it,  my  wife  and  children  will  be 
reduced  to  beggary." 

"  So  will  mine,"  said  Lapham,  "  or  the  next  thing 
to  it." 

"  Well,  then,  I  want  you  to  give  me  this  chance 
to  get  on  my  feet  again.  You  've  no  right  to  deprive 
me  of  it ;  it 's  unchristian.  In  our  dealings  with  each 
other  we  should  be  guided  by  the  Golden  Rule,  as  I 
was  saying  to  Mrs.  Lapham  before  you  came  in.  I 
told  her  that  if  I  knew  myself,  I  should  in  your 
place  consider  the  circumstances  of  a  man  in  mine, 
who  had  honourably  endeavoured  to  discharge  his 
obligations  to  me,  and  had  patiently  borne  my 
undeserved  suspicions.  I  should  consider  that  man's 
family,  I  told  Mrs.  Lapham." 

"  Did  you  tell  her  that  if  I  went  in  with  you  and 
those  fellows,  I  should  be  robbing  the  people  who 
trusted  them  1 " 

"  I  don't  see  what  you  Ve  got  to  do  with  the 
people  that  sent  them  here.  They  are  rich  people, 
and  could  bear  it  if  it  came  to  the  worst.  But 
there  's  no  likelihood,  now,  that  it  will  come  to  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  463 

worst;  you  can  see  yourself  that  the  Road  has 
changed  its  mind  about  buying.  And  here  am  I 
without  a  cent  in  the  world ;  and  my  wife  is  an 
invalid.  She  needs  comforts,  she  needs  little  luxu 
ries,  and  she  hasn't  even  the  necessaries ;  and  you 
want  to  sacrifice  her  to  a  mere  idea !  You  don't 
know  in  the  first  place  that  the  Eoad  will  ever  want 
to  buy  ;  and  if  it  does,  the  probability  is  that  with  a 
colony  like  that  planted  on  its  line,  it  would  make 
very  different  terms  from  what  it  would  with  you  or 
me.  These  agents  are  not  afraid,  and  their  princi 
pals  are  rich  people ;  and  if  there  was  any  loss,  it 
would  be  divided  up  amongst  them  so  that  they 
wouldn't  any  of  them  feel  it." 

Lapham  stole  a  troubled  glance  at  his  wife,  and 
saw  that  there  was  no  help  in  her.  Whether  she 
was  daunted  and  confused  in  her  own  conscience  by 
the  outcome,  so  evil  and  disastrous,  of  the  reparation 
to  Rogers  which  she  had  forced  her  husband  to 
make,  or  whether  her  perceptions  had  been  blunted 
and  darkened  by  the  appeals  which  Rogers  had  now 
used,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say.  Probably  there 
was  a  mixture  of  both  causes  in  the  effect  which  her 
husband  felt  in  her,  and  from  which  he  turned,  gird 
ing  himself  anew,  to  Rogers. 

"  I  have  no  wish  to  recur  to  the  past,"  continued 
Rogers,  with  growing  superiority.  "You  'have 
shown  a  proper  spirit  in  regard  to  that,  and  you 
have  done  what  you  could  to  wipe  it  out." 

"  I  should  think  I  had,"  said  Lapham.  "  I  Ve  used 
up  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  trying." 


464  THE  RISE  OF 

"Some  of  my  enterprises,"  Eogers  admitted, 
"have  been  unfortunate,  seemingly;  but  I  have 
hopes  that  they  will  yet  turn  out  well — in  time.  I 
can't  understand  why  you  should  be  so  mindful  of 
others  now,  when  you  showed  so  little  regard  for  me 
then.  I  had  come  to  your  aid  at  a  time  when  you 
needed  help,  and  when  you  got  on  your  feet  you 
kicked  me  out  of  the  business.  I  don't  complain, 
but  that  is  the  fact ;  and  I  had  to  begin  again,  after 
I  had  supposed  myself  settled  in  life,  and  establish 
myself  elsewhere." 

Lapham  glanced  again  at  his  wife ;  her  head  had 
fallen ;  he  could  see  that  she  was  so  rooted  in  her 
old  remorse  for  that  questionable  act  of  his,  amply 
and  more  than  fully  atoned  for  since,  that  she  was 
helpless,  now  in  the  crucial  moment,  when  he  had 
the  utmost  need  of  her  insight.  He  had  counted 
upon  her;  he  perceived  now  that  when  he  had 
thought  it  was  for  him  alone  to  decide,  he  had 
counted  upon  her  just  spirit  to  stay  his  own  in  its 
struggle  to  be  just.  He  had  not  forgotten  how  she 
held  out  against  him  only  a  little  while  ago,  when 
he  asked  her  whether  he  might  not  rightfully  sell  in 
some  such  contingency  as  this  ;  and  it  was  not  now 
that  she  said  or  even  looked  anything  in  favour  of 
Rogers,  but  that  she  was  silent  against  him,  which 
dismayed  Lapham.  He  swallowed  the  lump  that 
rose  in  his  throat,  the  self-pity,  the  pity  for  her,  the 
despair,  and  said  gently,  "  I  guess  you  better  go  to 
bed,  Persis.  It 's  pretty  late." 

She  turned  towards  the  door,  when  Rogers  said, 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  465 

with  the  obvious  intention  of  detaining  her  through 
her  curiosity — 

"  But  I  let  that  pass.  And  I  don't  ask  now  that 
you  should  sell  to  these  men." 

Mrs.  Lapham  paused,  irresolute. 

"  What  are  you  making  this  bother  for,  then  ] " 
demanded  Lapham.  "  What  do  you  want  ] " 

"  What  I  've  been  telling  your  wife  here.  I  want 
you  should  sell  to  me.  I  don't  say  what  I  'm  going 
to  do  with  the  property,  and  you  will  not  have  an 
iota  of  responsibility,  whatever  happens." 

Lapham  was  staggered,  and  he  saw  his  wife's  face 
light  up  with  eager  question. 

"  I  want  that  property,"  continued  Rogers,  "  and 
I  've  got  the  money  to  buy  it.  What  will  you  take 
for  it  1  If  it 's  the  price  you  're  standing  out  for " 

"  Persis,"  said  Lapham,  "  go  to  bed,"  and  he  gave 
her  a  look  that  meant  obedience  for  her.  She  went 
out  of  the  door,  and  left  him  with  his  tempter. 

"  If  you  think  I  'm  going  to  help  you  whip  the 
devil  round  the  stump,  you  're  mistaken  in  your  man, 
Milton  Rogers,"  said  Lapham,  lighting  a  cigar.  "  As 
soon  as  I  sold  to  you,  you  would  sell  to  that  other 
pair  of  rascals.  /  smelt  'em  out  in  half  a  minute." 

"  They  are  Christian  gentlemen,"  said  Rogers. 
"  But  I  don't  purpose  defending  them  ;  and  I  don't 
purpose  telling  you  what  I  shall  or  shall  not  do  with 
the  property  when  it  is  in  my  hands  again.  The 
question  is,  Will  you  sell,  and,  if  so,  what  is  your 
figure  ?  You  have  got  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
it  after  you  've  sold." 

2  G 


466  THE  RISE  OF 

It  was  perfectly  true.  Any  lawyer  would  have 
told  him  the  same.  He  could  not  help  admiring 
Rogers  for  his  ingenuity,  and  every  selfish  interest 
of  his  nature  joined  with  many  obvious  duties  to 
urge  him  to  consent.  He  did  not  see  why  he  should 
refuse.  There  was  no  longer  a  reason.  He  was 
standing  out  alone  for  nothing,  any  one  else  would 
say.  He  smoked  on  as  if  Rogers  were  not  there, 
and  Rogers  remained  before  the  fire  as  patient  as  the 
clock  ticking  behind  his  head  on  the  mantel,  and 
showing  the  gleam  of  its  pendulum  beyond  his  face 
on  either  side.  But  at  last  he  said,  "  Well  1" 

"Well,"  answered  Lapham,  "you  can't  expect 
me  to  give  you  an  answer  to-night,  any  more  than 
before.  You  know  that  what  you've  said  now 
hasn't  changed  the  thing  a  bit.  I  wish  it  had.  The 
Lord  knows,  I  want  to  be  rid  of  the  property  fast 
enough." 

"  Then  why  don't  you  sell  to  me  1  Can't  you  see 
that  you  will  not  be  responsible  for  what  happens 
after  you  have  sold  ? " 

"  No,  I  can't  see  that ;  but  if  I  can  by  morning, 
I '11  sell" 

"Why  do  you  expect  to  know  any  better  by 
morning  1  You  're  wasting  time  for  nothing  ! "  cried 
Rogers,  in  his  disappointment.  "  Why  are  you  so 
particular  1  When  you  drove  me  out  of  the  business 
you  were  not  so  very  particular." 

Lapham  winced.  It  was  certainly  ridiculous  for 
a  man  who  had  once  so  selfishly  consulted  his  own 
interests  to  be  stickling  now  about  the  rights,  of 
others. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  467 

"I  guess  nothing's  going  to  happen  overnight," 
he  answered  sullenly.  "Anyway,  I  shan't  say  what 
I  shall  do  till  morning." 

"  What  time  can  I  see  you  in  the  morning  1 " 

"  Half-past  nine." 

Kogers  buttoned  his  coat,  and  went  out  of  the 
room  without  another  word.  Lapham  followed  him 
to  close  the  street-door  after  him. 

His  wife  called  down  to  him  from  above  as  he 
approached  the  room  again,  "Well?" 

"  I  've  told  him  I  'd  let  him  know  in  the  morning." 

"Want  I  should  come  down  and  talk  with  you  1" 

"  No,"  answered  Lapham,  in  the  proud  bitterness 
which  his  isolation  brought,  "you  couldn't  do  any 
good."  He  went  in  and  shut  the  door,  and  by  and 
by  his  wife  heard  him  begin  walking  up  and  down ; 
and  then  the  rest  of  the  night  she  lay  awake  and 
listened  to  him  walking  up  and  down.  But  when 
the  first  light  whitened  the  window,  the  words  of  the 
Scripture  came  into  her  mind  :  "  And  there  wrestled 
a  man  with  him  until  the  breaking  of  the  day.  .  .  . 
And  he  said,  Let  me  go,  for  the  day  breaketh.  And 
he  said,  I  will  not  let  thee  go,  except  thou  bless  me." 

She  could  not  ask  him  anything  when  they  met, 
but  he  raised  his  dull  eyes  after  the  first  silence,  and 
said,  "  /  don't  know  what  I  'm  going  to  say  to 
Kogers." 

She  could  not  speak ;  she  did  not  know  what  to 
say,  and  she  saw  her  husband,  when  she  followed 
him  with  her  eyes  from  the  window,  drag  heavily 
down  toward  the  corner,  where  he  was  to  take  the 
horse-car. 


468  THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

He  arrived  rather  later  than  usual  at  his  office, 
and  he  found  his  letters  already  on  his  table.  There 
was  one,  long  and  official-looking,  with  a  printed 
letter-heading  on  the  outside,  and  Lapham  had  no 
need  to  open  it  in  order  to  know  that  it  was  the 
offer  of  the  Great  Lacustrine  &  Polar  Eailroad  for 
his  mills.  But  he  went  mechanically  through  the 
verification  of  his  prophetic  fear,  which  was  also  his 
sole  hope,  and  then  sat  looking  blankly  at  it. 

Eogers  came  promptly  at  the  appointed  time,  and 
Laphain  handed  him  the  letter.  He  must  have 
taken  it  all  in  at  a  glance,  and  seen  the  impossibility 
of  negotiating  any  further  now,  even  with  victims  so 
pliant  and  willing  as  those  Englishmen. 

"You've  ruined  me!"  Eogers  broke  out.  "I 
haven't  a  cent  left  in  the  world  !  God  help  my  poor 
wife  !" 

He  went  out,  and  Lapham  remained  staring  at  the 
door  which  closed  upon  him.  This  was  his  reward 
for  standing  firm  for  right  and  justice  to  his  own 
destruction  :  to  feel  like  a  thief  and  a  murderer. 


XXVL 

LATER  in  the  forenoon  came  the  despatch  from  the 
West  Virginians  in  New  York,  saying  their  brother 
assented  to  their  agreement ;  and  it  now  remained 
for  Lapham  to  fulfil  his  part  of  it.  He  was  ludi 
crously  far  from  able  to  do  this  ;  and  unless  he  could 
get  some  extension  of  time  from  them,  he  must  lose 
this  chance,  his  only  chance,  to  retrieve  himself. 
He  spent  the  time  in  a  desperate  endeavour  to  raise 
the  money,  but  he  had  not  raised  the  half  of  it  when 
the  banks  closed.  With  shame  in  his  heart  he 
went  to  Bellingham,  from  whom  he  had  parted  so 
haughtily,  and  laid  his  plan  before  him.  He  could 
not  bring  himself  to  ask  Bellingham's  help,  but  he 
told  him  what  he  proposed  to  do.  Bellingham 
pointed  out  that  the  whole  thing  was  an  experi 
ment,  and  that  the  price  asked  was  enormous,  un 
less  a  great  success  were  morally  certain.  He  advised 
delay,  he  advised  prudence ;  he  insisted  that  Lapham 
ought  at  least  to  go  out  to  Kanawha  Falls,  and  see 
the  mines  and  works  before  he  put  any  such  sum 
into  the  development  of  the  enterprise. 

"  That 's  all  well  enough,"  cried  Lapham  ;  "  but  if 
I  don't  clinch  this  offer  within  twenty-four  hours, 

469 


470  THE  RISE  OF 

they  '11  withdraw  it,  and  go  into  the  market ;  and 
then  where  am  1 1 " 

"Go. on  and  see  them  again,"  said  Bellingham. 
"They  can't  be  so  peremptory  as  that  with  you. 
They  must  give  you  time  to  look  at  what  they 
want  to  sell.  If  it  turns  out  what  you  hope,  then 
— I  '11  see  what  can  be  done.  But  look  into  it 
thoroughly." 

"  Well !  "  cried  Lapham,  helplessly  submitting. 
He  took  out  his  watch,  and  saw  that  he  had  forty 
minutes  to  catch  the  four  o'clock  train.  He  hurried 
back  to  his  office,  and  put  together  some  papers  pre 
paratory  to  going,  and  despatched  a  note  by  his  boy 
to  Mrs.  Lapham  saying  that  he  was  starting  for 
New  York,  and  did  not  know  just  when  he  should 
get  back. 

The  early  spring  day  was  raw  and  cold.  As  he 
went  out  through  the  office  he  saw  the  clerks  at 
work  with  their  street-coats  and  hats  on;  Miss 
Dewey  had  her  jacket  dragged  up  on  her  shoulders, 
and  looked  particularly  comfortless  as  she  operated 
her  machine  with  her  red  fingers.  "  What 's  up  ?  " 
asked  Lapham,  stopping  a  moment. 

"Seems  to  be  something  the  matter  with  the 
steam,"  she  answered,  with  the  air  of  unmerited 
wrong  habitual  with  so  many  pretty  women  who 
have  to  work  for  a  living. 

"  Well,  take  your  writer  into  my  room.  There 's 
a  fire  in  the  stove  there,"  said  Lapham,  passing 
out. 

Half  an  hour  later  his  wife  came  into  the  outer 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  4-71 

office.  She  had  passed  the  day  in  a  passion  of  self- 
reproach,  gradually  mounting  from  the  mental  numb 
ness  in  which  he  had  left  her,  and  now  she  could 
wait  no  longer  to  tell  him  that  she  saw  how  she  had 
forsaken  him  in  his  hour  of  trial  and  left  him  to 
bear  it  alone.  She  wondered  at  herself  in  shame 
and  dismay;  she  wondered  that  she  could  have 
been  so  confused  as  to  the  real  point  by  that  old 
wretch  of  a  Kogers,  that  she  could  have  let  him 
hoodwink  her  so,  even  for  a  moment.  It  astounded 
her  that  such  a  thing  should  have  happened,  for  if 
there  was  any  virtue  upon  which  this  good  woman 
prided  herself,  in  which  she  thought  herself  superior 
to  her  husband,  it  was  her  instant  and  steadfast  per 
ception  of  right  and  wrong,  and  the  ability  to  choose 
the  right  to  her  own  hurt.  But  she  had  now  to 
confess,  as  each  of  us  has  had  likewise  to  confess  in 
his  own  case,  that  the  very  virtue  on  which  she  had 
prided  herself  was  the  thing  that  had  played  her 
false;  that  she  had  kept  her  mind  so  long  upon 
that  old  wrong  which  she  believed  her  husband  had 
done  this  man  that  she  could  not  detach  it,  but 
clung  to  the  thought  of  reparation  for  it  when  she 
ought  to  have  seen  that  he  was  proposing  a  piece  of 
roguery  as  the  means.  The  suffering  which  Lapham 
must  inflict  on  him  if  he  decided  against  him  had 
been  more  to  her  apprehension  than  the  harm  he 
might  do  if  he  decided  for  him.  But  now  she 
owned  her  limitations  to  herself,  and  above  every 
thing  in  the  world  she  wished  the  man  whom  her 
conscience  had  roused  and  driven  on  whither  her 


472  THE  RISE  OP 

intelligence  had  not  followed,  to  do  right,  to  do 
what  he  felt  to  be  right,  and  nothing  else.  She 
admired  and  revered  him  for  going  beyond  her,  and 
she  wished  to  tell  him  that  she  did  not  know  what 
he  had  determined  to  do  about  Rogers,  but  that  she 
knew  it  was  right,  and  would  gladly  abide  the  con 
sequences  with  him,  whatever  they  were. 

She  had  not  been  near  his  place  of  business  for 
nearly  a  year,  and  her  heart  smote  her  tenderly  as 
she  looked  about  her  there,  and  thought  of  the  early 
days  when  she  knew  as  much  about  the  paint  as  he 
did;  she  wished  that  those  days  were  back  again. 
She  saw  Corey  at  his  desk,  and  she  could  not  bear 
to  speak  to  him ;  she  dropped  her  veil  that  she  need 
not  recognise  him,  and  pushed  on  to  Lapham's  room, 
and  opening  the  door  without  knocking,  shut  it  be 
hind  her. 

Then  she  became  aware  with  intolerable  disap 
pointment  that  her  husband  was  not  there.  Instead, 
a  very  pretty  girl  sat  at  his  desk,  operating  a  type 
writer.  She  seemed  quite  at  home,  and  she  paid 
Mrs.  Laphain  the  scant  attention  which  such  young 
women  often  bestow  upon  people  not  personally  in 
teresting  to  them.  It  vexed  the  wife  that  any  one 
else  should  seem  to  be  helping  her  husband  about  busi 
ness  that  she  had  once  been  so  intimate  with ;  and 
she  did  not  at  all  like  the  girl's  indifference  to  her 
presence.  Her  hat  and  sack  hung  on  a  nail  in  one 
corner,  and  Lapham's  office  coat,  looking  intensely 
like  him  to  his  wife's  familiar  eye,  hung  on  a  nail  in 
the  other  corner;  and  Mrs.  Laphain  liked  even  less 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  473 

than  the  girl's  good  looks  this  domestication  of  her 
garments  in  her  husband's  office.  She  began  to  ask 
herself  excitedly  why  he  should  be  away  from  his 
office  when  she  happened  to  come ;  and  she  had  not 
tlie  strength  at  the  moment  to  reason  herself  out  of 
her  unreasonableness. 

"  When  will  Colonel  Lapham  be  in,  do  you  sup 
pose  ? "  she  sharply  asked  of  the  girl. 

"  I  couldn't  say  exactly,"  replied  the  girl,  without 
looking  round. 

"  Has  he  been  out  long  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  noticed,"  said  the  girl,  looking 
up  at  the  clock,  without  looking  at  Mrs.  Lapham. 
She  went  on  working  her  machine. 

"Well,  I  can't  wait  any  longer,"  said  the  wife 
abruptly.  "  When  Colonel  Lapham  comes  in,  you 
please  tell  him  Mrs.  Lapham  wants  to  see  him." 

The  girl  started  to  her  feet  and  turned  toward 
Mrs.  Lapham  with  a  red  and  startled  face,  which 
she  did  not  lift  to  confront  her.  "Yes — yes — I 
will,"  she  faltered. 

The  wife  went  home  with  a  sense  of  defeat  mixed 
with  an  irritation  about  this  girl  which  she  could 
not  quell  or  account  for.  She  found  her  husband's 
message,  and  it  seemed  intolerable  that  he  should 
have  gone  to  New  York  without  seeing  her;  she 
asked  herself  in  vain  what  the  mysterious  business 
could  be  that  took  him  away  so  suddenly.  She  said 
to  herself  that  he  was  neglecting  her;  he  was  leaving 
her  out  a  little  too  much ;  and  in  demanding  of  her 
self  why  he  had  never  mentioned  that  girl  there  in 


474  THE  RISE  OF 

his  office,  she  forgot  how  much  she  had  left  herself 
out  of  his  business  life.  That  was  another  curse  of 
their  prosperity.  Well,  she  was  glad  the  prosperity 
was  going ;  it  had  never  been  happiness.  After  this 
she  was  going  to  know  everything  as  she  used. 
'  She  tried  to  dismiss  the  whole  matter  till  Lapham 
returned ;  and  if  there  had  been  anything  for  her  to 
do  in  that  miserable  house,  as  she  called  it  in  her 
thought,  she  might  have  succeeded.  But  again  the 
curse  was  on  her  ;  there  was  nothing  to  do  ;  and  the 
looks  of  that  girl  kept  coming  back  to  her  vacancy, 
her  disoccupation.  She  tried  to  make  herself  some 
thing  to  do,  but  that  beauty,  which  she  had  not 
liked,  followed  her  amid  the  work  of  overhauling  the 
summer  clothing,  which  Irene  had  seen  to  putting 
away  in  the  fall.  Who  was  the  thing,  anyway  1  It 
was  very  strange,  her  being  there ;  why  did  she 
jump  up  in  that  frightened  way  when  Mrs.  Lapham 
had  named  herself  1 

After  dark,  that  evening,  when  the  question  had 
worn  away  its  poignancy  from  mere  iteration,  a  note 
for  Mrs.  Lapham  was  left  at  the  door  by  a  messenger 
who  said  there  was  no  answer.  "  A  note  for  me  ? " 
she  said,  staring  at  the  unknown,  and  somehow 
artificial-looking,  handwriting  of  the  superscription. 
Then  she  opened  it  and  read :  "  Ask  your  hus 
band  about  his  lady  copying-clerk.  A  Friend  and 
Well-wisher,"  who  signed  the  note,  gave  no  other 
name. 

Mrs.  Lapham  sat  helpless  with  it  in  her  hand. 
Her  brain  reeled  ;  she  tried  to  fight  the  madness  off; 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  475 

but  before  Lapham  came  back  the  second  morning, 
it  had  become,  with  lessening  intervals  of  sanity  and 
release,  a  demoniacal  possession.  She  passed  the 
night  without  sleep,  without  rest,  in  the  frenzy  of 
the  cruellest  of  the  passions,  which  covers  with 
shame  the  unhappy  soul  it  possesses,  and  murder 
ously  lusts  for  the  misery  of  its  object.  If  she  had 
known  where  to  find  her  husband  in  New  York,  she 
would  have  followed  him ;  she  waited  his  return  in 
an  ecstasy  of  impatience.  In  the  morning  he  came 
back,  looking  spent  and  haggard.  She  saw  him 
drive  up  to  the  door,  and  she  ran  to  let  him  in  her 
self. 

"  Who  is  that  girl  you've  got  in  your  office,  Silas 
Lapham  ] "  she  demanded,  when  her  husband  en 
tered. 

"  Girl  in  my  office  1 " 

"  Yes  !    Who  is  she  ?     What  is  she  doing  there  ? " 
"  Why,  what  have  you  heard  about  her  ]  " 
"  Never  you  mind  what  I  Ve  heard.     Who  is  she  1 
Is  it  Mrs.  M.  that  you  gave  that  money  to  ?    I  want  to 
know  who  she  is  !     I  want  to  know  what  a  respect 
able  man,  with  grown-up  girls  of  his  own,  is  doing 
with  such  a  looking  thing  as  that  in  his  office  ?     I 
want  to  know  how  long  she 's  been  there  1     I  want 
to  know  what  she 's  there  at  all  for  1 " 

He  had  mechanically  pushed  her  before  him  into 
the  long,  darkened  parlour,  and  he  shut  himself  in 
there  with  her  now,  to  keep  the  household  from 
hearing  her  lifted  voice.  For  a  while  he  stood  be 
wildered,  and  could  not  have  answered  if  he  would ; 


476  THE  RISE  OF 

and  then  he  would  not.  He  merely  asked,  "  Have  I 
ever  accused  you  of  anything  wrong,  Persia  ?" 

"  You  no  need  to !"  she  answered  furiously, 
placing  herself  against  the  closed  door. 

"  Did  you  ever  know  me  to  do  anything  out  of 
the  way?" 

"  That  isn't  what  I  asked  you." 

"  Well,  I  guess  you  may  find  out  about  that  girl 
yourself.  Get  away  from  the  door." 

"  I  won't  get  away  from  the  door." 

She  felt  herself  set  lightly  aside,  and  her  husband 
opened  the  door  and  went  out.  "  I  will  find  out 
about  her,"  she  screamed  after  him.  "  I  '11  find  out, 
and  I  '11  disgrace  you.  I  '11  teach  you  how  to  treat 
me " 

The  air  blackened  round  her:  she  reeled  to  the 
sofa  and  then  she  found  herself  waking  from  a 
faint.  She  did  not  know  how  long  she  had  lain 
there  ;  she  did  not  care.  In  a  moment  her  madness 
came  whirling  back  upon  her.  She  rushed  up  to  his 
room  ;  it  was  empty  ;  the  closet-doors  stood  ajar  and 
the  drawers  were  open  ;  he  must  have  packed  a  bag 
hastily  and  fled.  She  went  out  and  wandered  crazily 
up  and  down  till  she  found  a  hack.  She  gave  the 
driver  her  husband's  business  address,  and  told  him 
to  drive  there  as  fast  as  he  could  ;  and  three  times 
she  lowered  tha  window  to  put  her  head  out  and 
ask  him  if  he  could  not  hurry.  A  thousand  things 
thronged  into  her  mind  to  support  her  in  her  evil 
will.  She  remembered  how  glad  and  proud  that 
man  had  been  to  marry  her,  and  how  everybody  said 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  477 

she  was  marrying  beneath  her  when  she  took  him. 
She  remembered  how  good  she  had  always  been  to 
him,  how  perfectly  devoted,  slaving  early  and  late  to 
advance  him,  and  looking  out  for  his  interests  in  all 
things,  and  sparing  herself  in  nothing.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  her,  he  might  have  been  driving  stage  yet ; 
and  since  their  troubles  had  begun,  the  troubles  which 
his  own  folly  and  imprudence  had  brought  on  them, 
her  conduct  had  been  that  of  a  true  and  faithful  wife. 
Was  he  the  sort  of  man  to  be  allowed  to  play  her 
false  with  impunity  ?  She  set  her  teeth  and  drew 
her  breath  sharply  through  them  when  she  thought 
how  willingly  she  had  let  him  befool  her,  and  delude 
her  about  that  memorandum  of  payments  to  Mrs.  M., 
because  she  loved  him  so  much,  and  pitied  him  for 
his  cares  and  anxieties.  She  recalled  his  confusion, 
his  guilty  looks. 

She  plunged  out  of  the  carriage  so  hastily  when 
she  reached  the  office  that  she  did  not  think  of  paying 
the  driver ;  and  he  had  to  call  after  her  when  she 
had  got  half-way  up  the  stairs.  Then  she  went 
straight  to  Lapham's  room,  with  outrage  in  her  heart. 
There  was  again  no  one  there  but  that  type-writer 
girl ;  she  jumped  to  her  feet  in  a  fright,  as  Mrs. 
Lapham  dashed  the  door  to  behind  her  and  flung  up 
her  veil. 

The  two  women  confronted  each  other. 

"  Why,  the  good  land  !"  cried  Mrs.  Lapham,  "  ain't 
you  Zerrilla  Millon  1" 

"  I — I  'm  married,"  faltered  the  girl.  "  My  name 's 
Dewey,  now." 


478  THE  RISE  OP 

"  You  're  Jim  Millon's  daughter,  anyway.  How 
long  have  you  been  here  V 

"  I  haven't  been  here  regularly ;  I  've  been  here 
off  and  on  ever  since  last  May." 

"  Where 's  your  mother  1 " 

"  She 's  here — in  Boston." 

Mrs.  Lapham  kept  her  eyes  on  the  girl,  but  she 
dropped,  trembling,  into  her  husband's  chair,  and  a 
sort  of  amaze  and  curiosity  were  in  her  voice  instead 
of  the  fury  she  had  meant  to  put  there. 

"  The  Colonel,"  continued  Zerrilla,  "  he 's  been 
helping  us,  and  he 's  got  me  a  type-writer,  so  that  I 
can  help  myself  a  little.  Mother 's  doing  pretty  well 
now  ;  and  when  Hen  isn't  around  we  can  get  along." 

"That  you  husband?" 

"  I  never  wanted  to  marry  him  ;  but  he  promised 
to  try  to  get  something  to  do  on  shore  ;  and  mother 
was  all  for  it,  because  he  had  a  little  property  then, 
and  I  thought  may  be  I  'd  better.  But  it 's  turned 
out  just  as  I  said,  and  if  he  don't  stay  away  long 
enough  this  time  to  let  me  get  the  divorce, — he 's 
agreed  to  it,  time  and  again, — I  don't  know  what 
we're  going  to  do."  Zerrilla's  voice  fell,  and  the 
trouble  which  she  could  keep  out  of  her  face  usually, 
when  she  was  comfortably  warmed  and  fed  and 
prettily  dressed,  clouded  it  in  the  presence  of  a 
sympathetic  listener.  "  I  saw  it  was  you,  when  you 
came  in  the  other  day,"  she  went  on  ;  "  but  you 
didn't  seem  to  know  me.  I  suppose  the  Colonel 's 
told  you  that  there's  a  gentleman  going  to  marry 
me — Mr.  Wemmel  's  his  name — as  soon  as  I  get  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  479 

divorce ;  but  sometimes  I  'm  completely  discouraged  ; 
it  don't  seem  as  if  I  ever  could  get  it." 

Mrs.  Lapham  would  not  let  her  know  that  she  was 
ignorant  of  the  fact  attributed  to  her  knowledge. 
She  remained  listening  to  Zerrilla,  and  piecing  out 
the  whole  history  of  her  presence  there  from  the 
facts  of  the  past,  and  the  traits  of  her  husband's 
character.  One  of  the  things  she  had  always  had 
to  fight  him  about  was  that  idea  of  his  that  he  was 
bound  to  take  care  of  Jim  Millon's  worthless  wife 
and  her  child  because  Millon  had  got  the  bullet  that 
was  meant  for  him.  It  was  a  perfect  superstition  of 
his  ;  she  could  not  beat  it  out  of  him  ;  but  she  had 
made  him  promise  the  last  time  he  had  done  any 
thing  for  that  woman  that  it  should  be  the  last  time. 
He  had  then  got  her  a  little  house  in  one  of  the 
fishing  ports,  Avhere  she  could  take  the  sailors  to 
board  and  wash  for,  and  earn  an  honest  living  if  she 
would  keep  straight.  That  was  five  or  six  years 
ago,  and  Mrs.  Lapham  had  heard  nothing  of  Mrs. 
Millon  since ;  she  had  heard  quite  enough  of  her 
before  ;  and  had  known  her  idle  and  baddish  ever 
since  she  was  the  worst  little  girl  at  school  in  Lum- 
berville,  and  all  through  her  shameful  girlhood,  and 
the  married  days  which  she  had  made  so  miserable 
to  the  poor  fellow  who  had  given  her  his  decent 
name  and  a  chance  to  behave  herself.  Mrs.  Lapham 
had  no  mercy  on  Moll  Millon,  and  she  had  quarrelled 
often  enough  with  her  husband  for  befriending  her. 
As  for  the  child,  if  the  mother  would  put  Zerrilla 
out  with  some  respectable  family,  that  would  be  one 


480  THE  RISE  OF 

thing ;  but  as  long  as  she  kept  Zerrilla  with  her, 
she  was  against  letting  her  husband  do  anything  for 
either  of  them.  He  had  done  ten  times  as  much  for 
them  now  as  he  had  any  need  to,  and  she  had  made 
him  give  her  his  solemn  word  that  he  would  do  no 
more.  She  saw  now  that  she  was  wrong  to  make 
him  give  it,  and  that  he  must  have  broken  it  again 
and  again  for  the  reason  that  he  had  given  when  she 
once  scolded  him  for  throwing  away  his  money  on 
that  hussy — 

"  When  I  think  of  Jim  Millon,  I  Ve  got  to ;  that 's 
all." 

She  recalled  now  that  whenever  she  had  brought 
up  the  subject  of  Mrs.  Millon  and  her  daughter,  he 
had  seemed  shy  of  it,  and  had  dropped  it  with  some 
guess  that  they  were  getting  along  now.  She  won 
dered  that  she  had  not  thought  at  once  of  Mrs. 
Millon  when  she  saw  that  memorandum  about  Mrs. 
M. ;  but  the  woman  had  passed  so  entirely  out  of 
her  life,  that  she  had  never  dreamt  of  her  in  con 
nection  with  it.  Her  husband  had  deceived  her,  yet 
her  heart  was  no  longer  hot  against  him,  but  rather 
tenderly  grateful  that  his  deceit  was  in  this  sort,  and 
not  in  that  other.  All  cruel  and  shameful  doubt  of 
him  went  out  of  it.  She  looked  at  this  beautiful 
girl,  who  had  blossomed  out  of  her  knowledge  since 
she  saw  her  last,  and  she  knew  that  she  was  only  a 
blossomed  weed,  of  the  same  worthless  root  as  her 
mother,  and  saved,  if  saved,  from  the  same  evil 
destiny,  by  the  good  of  her  father  in  her ;  but  so  far 
as  the  girl  and  her  mother  were  concerned,  Mrs. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  481 

Lapham  knew  that  her  husband  was  to  blame  for 
nothing  but  his  wilful,  wrong-headed,  kind-hearted 
ness,  which  her  own  exactions  had  turned  into 
deceit.  She  remained  a  while,  questioning  the  girl 
quietly  about  herself  and  her  mother,  and  then,  with 
a  better  mind  towards  Zerrilla,  at  least,  than  she  had 
ever  had  before,  she  rose  up  and  went  out.  There 
must  have  been  some  outer  hint  of  the  exhaustion 
in  which  the  subsidence  otf  her  excitement  had  left 
her  within,  for  before  she  had  reached  the  head  of 
the  stairs,  Corey  came  towards  her. 

"  Can  I  be  of  any  use  to  you,  Mrs.  Lapham  1  The 
Colonel  was  here  just  before  you  came  in,  on  his  way 
to  the  train." 

"  Yes, — yes.  I  didn't  know — I  thought  perhaps 
I  could  catch  him  here.  But  it  don't  matter.  I 
wish  you  would  let  some  one  go  with  me  to  get  a 
carriage,"  she  begged  feebly. 

"  I  '11  go  with  you  myself,"  said  the  young  fellow, 
ignoring  the  strangeness  in  her  manner.  He  offered 
her  his  arm  in  the  twilight  of  the  staircase,  and  she 
was  glad  to  put  her  trembling  hand  through  it,  and 
keep  it  there  till  he  helped  her  into  a  hack  which  he 
found  for  her.  He  gave  the  driver  her  direction, 
and  stood  looking  a  little  anxiously  at  her. 

"  I  thank  you  ;  I  am  all  right  now,"  she  said,  and 
he  bade  the  man  drive  on. 

When  she  reached  home  she  went  to  bed,  spent 

with  the  tumult  of  her  emotions  and  sick  with  shame 

and  self-reproach.     She  understood  now,  as  clearly 

as  if  he  had  told  her  in  as  many  words,  that  if  he 

2H 


482  THE  RISE  OF 

had  befriended  those  worthless  jades — the  Millons 
characterised  themselves  so,  even  to  Mrs.  Lapham's 
remorse — secretly  and  in  defiance  of  her,  it  was  be 
cause  he  dreaded  her  blame,  which  was  so  sharp 
and  bitter,  for  what  he  could  not  help  doing.  It 
consoled  her  that  he  had  defied  her,  deceived  her ; 
when  he  came  back  she  should  tell  him  that ;  and 
then  it  flashed  upon  her  that  she  did  not  know 
where  he  was  gone,  or  whether  he  would  ever  come 
again.  If  he  never  came,  it  would  be  no  more  than 
she  deserved ;  but  she  sent  for  Penelope,  and  tried 
to  give  herself  hopes  of  escape  from  this  just 
penalty. 

Lapham  had  not  told  his  daughter  where  he  was 
going ;  she  had  heard  him  packing  his  bag,  and  had 
offered  to  help  him  ;  but  he  had  said  he  could  do  it 
best,  and  had  gone  off,  as  he  usually  did,  without 
taking  leave  of  any  one. 

"  What  were  you  talking  about  so  loud,  down  in 
the  parlour,"  she  asked  her  mother,  "  just  before  he 
came  up  ?  Is  there  any  new  trouble  1 " 

"No  ;  it  was  nothing." 

"  I  couldn't  tell.     Once  I  thought  you  were  laugh 
ing."   She  went  about,  closing  the  curtains  on  account 
of  her  mother's  headache,  and  doing  awkwardly  and 
imperfectly  the  things  that  Irene  would  have  done 
so  skilfully  for  her  comfort. 

The  day  wore  away  to  nightfall,  and  then  Mrs. 
Lapham  said  she  must  know.  Penelope  said  there 
was  no  one  to  ask  ;  the  clerks  would  all  be  gone 
home,  and  her  mother  said  yes,  there  was  Mr. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  483 

Corey  ;  they  could  send  and  ask  him ;  he  would 
know. 

The  girl  hesitated.  "Very  well,"  she  said,  then, 
scarcely  above  a  whisper,  and  she  presently  laughed 
huskily.  "  Mr.  Corey  seems  fated  to  come  in,  some 
where.  I  guess  it 's  a  Providence,  mother." 

She  sent  off  a  note,  inquiring  whether  he  could 
tell  her  just  where  her  father  had  expected  to  be 
that  night ;  and  the  answer  came  quickly  back  that 
Corey  did  not  know,  but  would  look  up  the  book 
keeper  and  inquire.  This  office  brought  him  in 
person,  an  hour  later,  to  tell  Penelope  that  the 
Colonel  was  to  be  at  Lapham  that  night  and  next 
day. 

"  He  came  in  from  New  York,  in  a  great  hurry, 
and  rushed  off  as  soon  as  he  could  pack  his  bag," 
Penelope  explained,  "  and  we  hadn't  a  chance  to  ask 
him  where  he  was  to  be  to-night  And  mother 
wasn't  very  well,  and " 

"  I  thought  she  wasn't  looking  well  when  she  was 
at  the  office  to-day.  And  so  I  thought  I  would  come 
rather  than  send,"  Corey  explained  in  his  turn. 

"Oh,  thank  you!" 

"If  there  is  anything  I  can  do — telegraph  Colonel 
Lapham,  or  anything  1" 

"  Oh  no,  thank  you  ;  mother 's  better  now.  She 
merely  wanted  to  be  sure  where  he  was." 

He  did  not  offer  to  go,  upon  this  conclusion  of  his 
business,  but  hoped  he  was  not  keeping  her  from  her 
mother.  She  thanked  him  once  again,  and  said  no, 
that  her  mother  was  much  better  since  she  had  had 


484  THE  RISE  OF 

a  cup  of  tea ;  and  then  they  looked  at  each  other, 
and  without  any  apparent  exchange  of  intelligence 
he  remained,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  he  was  still  there. 
He  was  honest  in  saying  he  did  not  know  it  was  so 
late ;  but  he  made  no  pretence  of  being  sorry,  and 
she  took  the  blame  to  herself. 

"  I  oughtn't  to  have  let  you  stay,"  she  said. 
"  But  with  father  gone,  and  all  that  trouble  hanging 
over  us " 

She  was  allowing  him  to  hold  her  hand  a  moment 
at  the  door,  to  which  she  had  followed  him. 

"  I  'm  so  glad  you  could  let  me  ! "  he  said,  "  and  I 
want  to  ask  you  now  when  I  may  come  again.  But 
if  you  need  me,  you  '11 — 

A  sharp  pull  at  the  door-bell  outside  made  them 
start  asunder,  and  at  a  sign  from  Penelope,  who 
knew  that  the  maids  were  abed  by  this  time,  he 
opened  it. 

"  Why,  Irene  !"  shrieked  the  girl. 

Irene  entered  with  the  hackman,  who  had  driven 
her  unheard  to  the  door,  following  with  her  small 
bags,  and  kissed  her  sister  with  resolute  composure. 
"That's  all,"  she  said  to  the  hackman.  "I  gave 
my  checks  to  the  expressman,"  she  explained  to 
Penelope. 

Corey  stood  helpless.  Irene  turned  upon  him, 
and  gave  him  her  hand.  "  How  do  you  do,  Mr. 
Corey  ? "  she  said,  with  a  courage  that  sent  a  thrill 
of  admiring  gratitude  through  him.  "  Where 's 
mamma,  Pen  1  Papa  gone  to  bed  ] " 

Penelope  faltered  out  some  reply  embodying  the 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  485 

facts,  and  Irene  ran  up  the  stairs  to  her  mother's 
room.  Mrs.  Lapham  started  up  in  bed  at  her 
apparition. 

"  Irene  Lapham  " 

"  Uncle  William  thought  he  ought  to  tell  me  the 
trouble  papa  was  in  ;  and  did  you  think  I  was  going 
to  stay  off  there  junketing,  while  you  were  going 
through  all  this  at  home,  and  Pen  acting  so  silly, 
too  ]  You  ought  to  have  been  ashamed  to  let  me 
stay  so  long  !  I  started  just  as  soon  as  I  could  pack. 
Did  you  get  my  despatch  ?  I  telegraphed  from 
Springfield.  But  it  don't  matter,  now.  Here  I  am. 
And  I  don't  think  I  need  have  hurried  on  Pen's 
account,"  she  added,  with  an  accent  prophetic  of  the 
sort  of  old  maid  she  would  become,  if  she  happened 
not  to  marry. 

"Did  you  see  him1?"  asked  her  mother.  "It's 
the  first  time  he 's  been  here  since  she  told  him  he 
mustn't  come." 

"  I  guess  it  isn't  the  last  time,  by  the  looks,"  said 
Irene,  and  before  she  took  off  her  bonnet  she  began 
to  undo  some  of  Penelope's  mistaken  arrangements 
of  the  room. 

At  breakfast,  where  Corey  and  his  mother  met  the 
next  morning  before  his  father  and  sisters  came 
down,  he  told  her,  with  embarrassment  which  told 
much  more,  that  he  wished  now  that  she  would  go 
and  call  upon  the  Laphams. 

Mrs.  Corey  turned  a  little  pale,  but  shut  her  lips 
tight  and  mourned  in  silence  whatever  hopes  she 
had  lately  permitted  herself.  She  answered  with 


486  THE  RISE  OF 

Eoman  fortitude :  "  Of  course,  if  there 's  anything 
between  you  and  Miss  Lapham,  your  family  ought 
to  recognise  it." 

"  Yes,"  said  Corey. 

"  You  were  reluctant  to  have  me  call-  at  first,  but 
now  if  the  affair  is  going  on " 

"It  is!     I  hope— yes,  it  is  !" 

"  Then  I  ought  to  go  and  see  her,  with  your 
sisters ;  and  she  ought  to  come  here  and — we  ought 
all  to  see  her  and  make  the  matter  public.  We 
can't  do  so  too  soon.  It  will  seem  as  if  we  were 
ashamed  if  we  don't." 

"  Yes,  you  are  quite  right,  mother,"  said  the 
young  man  gratefully,  'and  I  feel  how  kind  and 
good  you  are.  I  have  tried  to  consider  you  in  this 
matter,  though  I  don't  seem  to  have  done  so ;  I 
know  what  your  rights  are,  and  I  wish  with  all  my 
heart  that  I  were  meeting  even  your  tastes  perfectly. 
But  I  know  you  will  like  her  when  you  come  to 
know  her.  It 's  been  very  hard  for  her  every  way 
— about  her  sister, — and  she 's  made  a  great  sacrifice 
for  me.  She 's  acted  nobly." 

Mrs.  Corey,  whose  thoughts  cannot  always  be 
reported,  said  she  was  sure  of  it,  and  that  all  she 
desired  was  her  son's  happiness. 

"  She 's  been  very  unwilling  to  consider  it  an 
engagement  on  that  account,  and  on  account  of 
Colonel  Lapham 's  difficulties.  I  should  like  to  have 
you  go,  now,  for  that  very  reason.  I  don't  know 
just  how  serious  the  trouble  is  ;  but  it  isn't  a  time 
when  we  can  seem  indifferent." 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  487 

The  logic  of  this  was  not  perhaps  so  apparent  to 
the  glasses  of  fifty  as  to  the  eyes  of  twenty-six ;  but 
Mrs.  Corey,  however  she  viewed  it,  could  not  allow 
herself  to  blench  before  the  son  whom  she  had 
taught  that  to  want  magnanimity  was  to  be  less 
than  gentlemanly.  She  answered,  with  what  com 
posure  she  could,  "  I  will  take  your  sisters,"  and 
then  she  made  some  natural  inquiries  about  Lap- 
ham's  affairs. 

"  Oh,  I  hope  it  will  come  out  all  right,"  Corey 
said,  with  a  lover's  vague  smile,  and  left  her. 
When  his  father  came  down,  rubbing  his  long  hands 
together,  and  looking  aloof  from  all  the  cares  of  the 
practical  world,  in  an  artistic  withdrawal,  from  which 
his  eye  ranged  over  the  breakfast-table  before  he  sat 
down,  Mrs.  Corey  told  him  what  she  and  their  son 
had  been  saying. 

He  laughed,  with  a  delicate  impersonal  apprecia 
tion  of  the  predicament.  "  Well,  Anna,  you  can't 
say  but  if  you  ever  were  guilty  of  supposing  your 
self  porcelain,  this  is  a  just  punishment  of  your 
arrogance.  Here  you  are  bound  by  the  very  quality 
on  which  you  've  prided  yourself  to  behave  well  to 
a  bit  of  earthenware  who  is  apparently  in  danger  of 
losing  the  gilding  that  rendered  her  tolerable." 

"We  never  cared  for  the  money,"  said  Mrs. 
Corey.  "  You  know  that." 

"  No ;  and  now  we  can't  seem  to  care  for  the  loss 
of  it.  That  would  be  still  worse.  Either  horn  of 
the  dilemma  gores  us.  Well,  we  still  have  the 
comfort  we  had  in  the  beginning  ;  we  can't  help 


488        THE  RISE  OF  SILAS  LAPHAM. 

ourselves ;  and  we  should  only  make  bad  worse  by 
trying.  Unless  we  can  look  to  Tom's  inamorata 
herself  for  help." 

Mrs.  Corey  shook  her  head  so  gloomily  that  her 
husband  broke  off  with  another  laugh.  But  at  the 
continued  trouble  of  her  face,  he  said,  sympatheti 
cally  :  "  My  dear,  I  know  it 's  a  very  disagreeable 
affair ;  and  I  don't  think  either  of  us  has  failed  to 
see  that  it  was  so  from  the  beginning.  I  have  had 
my  way  of  expressing  my  sense  of  it,  and  you  yours, 
but  we  have  always  been  of  the  same  mind  about  it. 
We  would  both  have  preferred  to  have  Tom  marry 
in  his  own  set ;  the  Laphams  are  about  the  last  set 
we  could  have  wished  him  to  marry  into.  They  are 
uncultivated  people,  and  so  far  as  I  have  seen  them, 
I  'm  not  able  to  believe  that  poverty  will  improve 
them.  Still,  it  may.  Let  us  hope  for  the  best,  and 
let  us  behave  as  well  as  we  know  how.  I  'm  sure 
you  will  behave  well,  and  I  shall  try.  I'm  going 
with  you  to  call  on  Miss  Lapham.  This  is  a  thing 
that  can't  be  done  by  halves  !" 

He  cut  his  orange  in  the  Neapolitan  manner,  and 
ate  it  in  quarters. 


XXVIL 

IRENE  did  not  leave  her  mother  in  any  illusion 
concerning  her  cousin  Will  and  herself.  She  said 
they  had  all  been  as  nice  to  her  as  they  could  be, 
and  when  Mrs.  Lapham  hinted  at  what  had  been  in 
her  thoughts, — or  her  hopes,  rather, — Irene  severely 
snubbed  the  notion.  She  said  that  he  was  as  good 
as  engaged  to  a  girl  out  there,  and  that  he  had 
never  dreamt  of  her.  Her  mother  wondered  at  her 
severity;  in  these  few  months  the  girl  had  toughened 
and  hardened ;  she  had  lost  all  her  babyish  depend 
ence  and  pliability;  she  was  like  iron;  and  here 
and  there  she  was  sharpened  to  a  cutting  edge.  It 
had  been  a  life  and  death  struggle  with  her;  she 
had  conquered,  but  she  had  also  necessarily  lost 
much.  Perhaps  what  she  had  lost  was  not  worth 
keeping ;  but  at  any  rate  she  had  lost  it. 

She  required  from  her  mother  a  strict  and  accu 
rate  account  of  her  father's  affairs,  so  far  as  Mrs. 
Lapham  knew  them;  and  she  showed  a  business 
like  quickness  in  comprehending  them  that  Penelope 
had  never  pretended  to.  With  her  sister  she  ignored 
the  past  as  completely  as  it  was  possible  to  do ;  and 
she  treated  both  Corey  and  Penelope  with  the  justice 

489 


490  THE  RISE  OF 

which  their  innocence  of  voluntary  offence  deserved. 
It  was  a  difficult  part,  and  she  kept  away  from  them 
as  much  as  she  could.  She  had  been  easily  excused, 
on  a  plea  of  fatigue  from  her  journey,  when  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Corey  had  called  the  day  after  her  arrival, 
and  Mrs.  Lapham  being  still  unwell,  Penelope  re 
ceived  them  alone. 

The  girl  had  instinctively  judged  best  that  they 
should  know  the  worst  at  once,  and  she  let  them 
have  the  full  brunt  of  the  drawing-room,  while  she 
was  screwing  her  courage  up  to  come  down  and  see 
them.  She  was  afterwards — months  afterwards — 
able  to  report  to  Corey  that  when  she  entered  the 
room  his  father  was  sitting  with  his  hat  on  his  knees, 
a  little  tilted  away  from  the  Emancipation  group,  as 
if  he  expected  the  Lincoln  to  hit  him,  with  that  lifted 
hand  of  benediction ;  and  that  Mrs.  Corey  looked  as 
if  she  were  not  sure  but  the  Eagle  pecked.  But  for 
the  time  being  Penelope  was  as  nearly  crazed  as 
might  be  by  the  complications  of  her  position,  and 
received  her  visitors  with  a  piteous  distraction  which 
could  not  fail  of  touching  Bromfield  Corey's  Italian 
ised  sympatheticism.  He  was  very  polite  and  tender 
with  her  at  first,  and  ended  by  making  a  joke  with 
her,  to  which  Penelope  responded,  in  her  sort.  He 
said  he  hoped  they  parted  friends,  if  not  quite 
acquaintances ;  and  she  said  she  hoped  they  would 
be  able  to  recognise  each  other  if  they  ever  met 
again. 

"  That  is  what  I  meant  by  her  pertness,"  said  Mrs. 
Corey,  when  they  were  driving  away. 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  491 

"Was  it  very  pert?"  he  queried.  "The  child 
had  to  answer  something." 

"  I  would  much  rather  she  had  answered  nothing, 
under  the  circumstances,"  said  Mrs.  Corey.  "  How 
ever  !  "  she  added  hopelessly. 

"  Oh,  she  's  a  merry  little  grig,  you  can  see  that, 
and  there 's  no  harm  in  her.  I  can  understand  a 
little  why  a  formal  fellow  like  Tom  should  be  taken 
with  her.  She  hasn't  the  least  reverence,  I  suppose, 
and  joked  with  the  young  man  from  the  beginning. 
You  must  remember,  Anna,  that  there  was  a  time 
when  you  liked  my  joking." 

"  It  was  a  very  different  thing  !  " 

"  But  that  drawing-room,"  pursued  Corey;  "  really, 
I  don't  see  how  Tom  stands  that.  Anna,  a  terrible 
thought  occurs  to  me  !  Fancy  Tom  being  married 
in  front  of  that  group,  with  a  floral  horse-shoe  in 
tuberoses  coming  down  on  either  side  of  it ! 

"Bromfield ! "  cried  his  wife,  "you  are  unmerci 
ful." 

"  No,  no,  my  dear,"  he  argued ;  "  merely  imagin 
ative.  And  I  can  even  imagine  that  little  thing 
finding  Tom  just  the  least  bit  slow,  at  times,  if  it 
were  not  for  his  goodness.  Tom  is  so  kind  that 
I  'm  convinced  he  sometimes  feels  your  joke  in  his 
heart  when  his  head  isn't  quite  clear  about  it. 
Well,  we  will  not  despond,  my  dear." 

"  Your  father  seemed  actually  to  like  her,"  Mrs. 
Corey  reported  to  her  daughters,  very  much  shaken 
in  her  own  prejudices  by  the  fact.  If  the  girl  were 
not  so  offensive  to  his  fastidiousness,  there  might  be 


492  THE  RISE  OF 

some  hope  that  she  was  not  so  offensive  as  Mrs. 
Corey  had  thought.  "  I  wonder  how  she  will  strike 
you,"  she  concluded,  looking  from  one  daughter  to 
another,  as  if  trying  to  decide  which  of  them  would 
like  Penelope  least. 

Irene's  return  and  the  visit  of  the  Coreys  formed 
a  distraction  for  the  Laphams  in  which  their  impend 
ing  troubles  seemed  to  hang  further  aloof;  but  it 
was  only  one  of  those  reliefs  which  mark  the  course  of 
adversity,  and  it  was  not  one  of  the  cheerful  reliefs. 
At  any  other  time,  either  incident  would  have  been 
an  anxiety  and  care  for  Mrs.  Lapham  which  she 
would  have  found  hard  to  bear ;  but  now  she  almost 
welcomed  them.  At  the  end  of  three  days  Lapham 
returned,  and  his  wife  met  him  as  if  nothing  unusual 
had  marked  their  parting ;  she  reserved  her  atone 
ment  for  a  fitter  time;  he  would  know  now  from  the 
way  she  acted  that  she  felt  all  right  towards  him. 
He  took  very  little  note  of  her  manner,  but  met  his 
family  with  an  austere  quiet  that  puzzled  her,  and  a 
sort  of  pensive  dignity  that  refined  his  rudeness  to 
an  effect  that  sometimes  comes  to  such  natures  after 
long  sickness,  when  the  animal  strength  has  been 
taxed  and  lowered.  He  sat  silent  with  her  at  the 
table  after  their  girls  had  left  them  alone,  and  seeing 
that  he  did  not  mean  to  speak,  she  began  to  explain 
why  Irene  had  come  home,  and  to  praise  her. 

"  Yes,  she  done  right,"  said  Lapham.  "  It  was 
time  for  her  to  come,"  he  added  gently. 

Then  he  was  silent  again,  and  his  wife  told  him 
of  Corey  's  having  been  there,  and  of  his  father 's  and 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  493 

mother's  calling.  "I  guess  Pen's  concluded  to 
make  it  up,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  we  '11  see  about  that,"  said  Lapham ;  and 
now  she  could  no  longer  forbear  to  ask  him  about 
his  affairs. 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  Ve  got  any  right  to  know 
anything  about  it,"  she  said  humbly,  with  remote 
allusion  to  her  treatment  of  him.  "  But  I  can't  help 
wanting  to  know.  How  are  things  going,  Si  ? " 

"  Bad,"  he  said,  pushing  his  plate  from  him,  and 
tilting  himself  back  in  his  chair.  "  Or  they  ain't 
going  at  all  They  Ve  stopped." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Si?"  she  persisted,  ten 
derly. 

"  I  Ve  got  to  the  end  of  my  string.  To-morrow  I 
shall  call  a  meeting  of  my  creditors,  and  put  myself 
in  their  hands.  If  there's  enough  left  to  satisfy 
them,  I  'm  satisfied."  His  voice  dropped  in  his 
throat ;  he  swallowed  once  or  twice,  and  then  did 
not  speak. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  it 's  all  over  with  you  1"  she 
asked  fearfully. 

He  bowed  his  big  head,  wrinkled  and  grizzled ; 
and  after  a  while  he  said,  "  It 's  hard  to  realise  it ; 
but  I  guess  there  ain't  any  doubt  about  it."  He 
drew  a  long  breath,  and  then  he  explained  to  her 
about  the  West  Virginia  people,  and  how  he  had  got 
an  extension  of  the  first  time  they  had  given  him, 
and  had  got  a  man  to  go  up  to  Lapham  with  him 
and  look  at  the  works, — a  man  that  had  turned  up 
in  New  York,  and  wanted  to  put  money  in  the 


494  THE  RISE  OF 

business.  His  money  would  have  enabled  Lapham 
to  close  with  the  West  Virginians.  "  The  devil  was 
in  it,  right  straight  along,"  said  Lapham.  "All  I 
had  to  do  was  to  keep  quiet  about  that  other  com 
pany.  It  was  Rogers  and  his  property  right  over 
again.  He  liked  the  look  of  things,  and  he  wanted 
to  go  into  the  business,  and  he  had  the  money — 
plenty ;  it  would  have  saved  me  with  those  West 
Virginia  folks.  But  I  had  to  tell  him  how  I  stood.  I 
had  to  tell  him  all  about  it,  and  what  I  Avanted  to 
do.  He  began  to  back  water  in  a  minute,  and  the 
next  morning  I  saw  that  it  was  up  with  him.  He 's 
gone  back  to  New  York.  I  Ve  lost  my  last  chance. 
Now  all  I  Ve  got  to  do  is  to  save  the  pieces." 

"  Will — will — everything  go  1  "  she  asked. 

"  I  can't  tell,  yet  But  they  shall  have  a  chance 
at  everything — every  dollar,  every  cent.  I  'in  sorry 
for  you,  Persis — and  the  girls." 

"  Oh,  don't  talk  of  us  !  "  She  was  trying  to  realise 
that  the  simple,  rude  soul  to  which  her  heart  clove  in 
her  youth,  but  which  she  had  put  to  such  cruel  proof, 
with  her  unsparing  conscience  and  her  unsparing 
tongue,  had  been  equal  to  its  ordeals,  and  had  come 
out  unscathed  and  unstained.  He  was  able  in  his 
talk  to  make  so  little  of  them  ;  he  hardly  seemed  to 
see  what  they  were ;  he  was  apparently  not  proud  of 
them,  and  certainly  not  glad;  if  they  were  victories  of 
any  sort,  he  bore  them  with  the  patience  of  defeat. 
His  wife  wished  to  praise  him,  but  she  did  not  know 
how ;  so  she  offered  him  a  little  reproach,  in  which 
alone  she  touched  the  cause  of  her  behaviour  at  part- 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  495 

ing.  "  Silas,"  she  asked,  after  a  long  gaze  at  him,  "why 
didn't  you  tell  me  you  had  Jim  Millon's  girl  there  ]  " 

"I  didn't  suppose  you'd  like  it,  Persis,"  he 
answered.  "  I  did  intend  to  tell  you  at  first,  but 
then  I  put — I  put  it  off.  I  thought  you'd  come 
round  some  day,  and  find  it  out  for  yourself." 

"I'm  punished,"  said  his  wife,  "for  not  taking 
enough  interest  in  your  business  to  even  come  near 
it.  If  we  're  brought  back  to  the  day  of  small  things, 
I  guess  it  Js  a  lesson  for  me,  Silas." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  about  the  lesson,"  he  said 
wearily. 

That  night  she  showed  him  the  anonymous  scrawl 
which  had  kindled  her  fury  against  him.  He  turned 
it  listlessly  over  in  his  hand.  "  I  guess  I  know  who 
it 's  from,"  he  said,  giving  it  back  to  her,  "  and  I 
guess  you  do  too,  Persis." 

"But  how — how  could  he " 

"Mebbe  he  believed  it,"  said  Lapham,  with 
patience  that  cut  her  more  keenly  than  any  re 
proach.  "  You  did. ' 

Perhaps  because  the  process  of  his  ruin  had  been 
so  gradual,  perhaps  because  the  excitement  of  pre 
ceding  events  had  exhausted  their  capacity  for 
emotion,  the  actual  consummation  of  his  bankruptcy 
brought  a  relief,  a  repose  to  Lapham  and  his  family, 
rather  than  a  fresh  sensation  of  calamity.  In  the 
shadow  of  his  disaster  they  returned  to  something 
like  their  old,  united  life  ;  they  were  at  least  all 
together  again  ;  and  it  will  be  intelligible  to  those 
whom  life  has  blessed  with  vicissitude,  that  Lapham 


496  THE  RISE  OF 

should  come  home  the  evening  after  he  had  given  up 
everything^)  his  creditors,  and  should  sit  down  to 
his  supper  so  cheerful  that  Penelope  could  joke  him 
in  the  old  way,  and  tell  him  that  she  thought  from 
his  looks  they  had  concluded  to  pay  him  a  hundred 
cents  on  every  dollar  he  owed  them. 

As  James  Bellingham  had  taken  so  much  interest 
in  his  troubles  from  the  first,  Lapham  thought  he 
ought  to  tell  him,  before  taking  the  final  step,  just 
how  things  stood  with  him,  and  what  he  meant  to 
do.  Bellingham  made  some  futile  inquiries  about 
his  negotiations  with  the  West  Virginians,  and 
Lapham  told  him  they  had  come  to  nothing.  He 
spoke  of  the  New  York  man,  and  the  chance  that 
he  might  have  sold  out  half  his  business  to  him. 
"  But,  of  course,  I  had  to  let  him  know  how  it  was 
about  those  fellows." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Bellingham,  not  seeing  till  after 
wards  the  full  significance  of  Lapham's  action. 

Lapham  said  nothing  about  Rogers  and  the 
Englishmen.  He  believed  that  he  had  acted  right 
in  that  matter,  and  he  was  satisfied  ;  but  he  did  not 
care  to  have  Bellingham,  or  anybody,  perhaps,  think 
he  had  been  a  fool 

All  those  who  were  concerned  in  his  affairs  said 
he  behaved  well,  and  even  more  than  well,  when  it 
came  to  the  worst.  The  prudence,  the  good  sense, 
which  he  had  shown  in  the  first  years  of  his  success, 
and  of  which  his  great  prosperity  seemed  to  have 
bereft  him,  came  back,  and  these  qualities,  used  in 
his  own  behalf,  commended  him  as  much  to  his 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  497 

creditors  as  the  anxiety  he  showed  that  no  one 
should  suffer  by  him ;  this  even  made  some  of 
them  doubtful  of  his  sincerity.  They  gave  him 
time,  and  there  would  have  been  no  trouble  in  his 
resuming  on  the  old  basis,  if  the  ground  had  not 
been  cut  from  under  him  by  the  competition  of  the 
West  Virginia  company.  He  saw  himself  that  it 
was  useless  to  try  to  go  on  in  the  old  way,  and  he 
preferred  to  go  back  and  begin  the  world  anew 
where  he  had  first  begun  it,  in  the  hills  at  Lapham. 
He  put  the  house  at  Nankeen  Square,  with  every 
thing  else  he  had,  into  the  payment  of  his  debts,  and 
Mrs.  Lapham  found  it  easier  to  leave  it  for  the  old 
farmstead  in  Vermont  than  it  would  have  been  to  go 
from  that  home  of  many  years  to  the  new  house  on 
the  water  side  of  Beacon.  This  thing  and  that  is 
embittered  to  us,  so  that  we  may  be  willing  to  re 
linquish  it ;  the  world,  life  itself,  is  embittered  to 
most  of  us,  so  that  we  are  glad  to  have  done  with 
them  at  last ;  and  this  home  was  haunted  with  such 
memories  to  each  of  those  who  abandoned  it  that  to 
go  was  less  exile  than  escape.  Mrs.  Lapham  could 
not  look  into  Irene's  room  without  seeing  the  girl 
there  before  her  glass,  tearing  the  poor  little  keep 
sakes  of  her  hapless  fancy  from  their  hiding-places 
to  take  them  and  fling  them  in  passionate  renuncia 
tion  upon  her  sister ;  she  could  not  come  into  the 
sitting-room,  where  her  little  ones  had  grown  up, 
without  starting  at  the  thought  of  her  husband  sitting 
so  many  weary  nights  at  his  desk  there,  trying  to 
fight  his  way  back  to  hope  out  of  the  ruin  into  which 
2l 


498  THE  RISE  OF 

he  was  slipping.  When  she  remembered  that  night 
when  Rogers  came,  she  hated  the  place.  Irene  ac 
cepted  her  release  from  the  house  eagerly,  and  was 
glad  to  go  before  and  prepare  for  the  family  at  Lap- 
ham.  Penelope  was  always  ashamed  of  her  engage 
ment  there  ;  it  must  seem  better  somewhere  else, 
and  she  was  glad  to  go  too.  No  one  but  Lapham, 
in  fact,  felt  the  pang  of  parting  in  all  its  keenness. 
Whatever  regret  the  others  had  was  softened  to 
them  by  the  likeness  of  their  flitting  to  many  of 
those  removals  for  the  summer  which  they  made  in 
the  late  spring  when  they  left  Nankeen  Square ;  they 
were  going  directly  into  the  country  instead  of  to 
the  seaside  first ;  but  Lapham,  who  usually  remained 
in  town  long  after  they  had  gone,  knew  all  the  dif 
ference.  For  his  nerves  there  was  no  mechanical 
sense  of  coming  back ;  this  was  as  much  the  end  of 
his  proud,  prosperous  life  as  death  itself  could  have 
been.  He  was  returning  to  begin  life  anew,  but  he 
knew  as  well  as  he  knew  that  he  should  not  find  his 
vanished  youth  in  his  native  hills,  that  it  could 
never  again  be  the  triumph  that  it  had  been.  That 
was  impossible,  not  only  in  his  stiffened  and  weak 
ened  forces,  but  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  He 
was  going  back,  by  grace  of  the  man  whom  he  owed 
money,  to  make  Avhat  he  could  out  of  the  one 
chance  which  his  successful  rivals  had  left  him. 

In  one  phase  his  paint  had  held  its  own  against 
oad  times  and  ruinous  competition,  and  it  was 
with  the  hope  of  doing  still  more  with  the  Persis 
Brand  that  he  now  set  himself  to  work.  The  West 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  499 

Virginia  people  confessed  that  they  could  not  pro 
duce  those  fine  grades,  and  they  willingly  left  the 
field  to  him.  A  strange,  not  ignoble  friendliness 
existed  between  Lapham  and  the  three  brothers; 
they  had  used  him  fairly  ;  it  was  their  facilities  that 
had  conquered  him,  not  their  ill-will ;  and  he  recog 
nised  in  them  without  enmity  the  necessity  to  which 
he  had  yielded.  If  he  succeeded  in  his  efforts  to 
develop  his  paint  in  this  direction,  it  must  be  for  a 
long  time  on  a  small  scale  compared  with  his  former 
business,  which  it  could  never  equal,  and  he  brought 
to  them  the  flagging  energies  of  an  elderly  man. 
He  was  more  broken  than  he  knew  by  his  failure ; 
it  did  not  kill,  as  it  often  does,  but  it  weakened  the 
spring  once  so  strong  and  elastic.  He  lapsed  more 
and  more  into  acquiescence  with  his  changed  con 
dition,  and  that  bragging  note  of  his  was  rarely 
sounded.  He  worked  faithfully  enough  in  his  en 
terprise,  but  sometimes  he  failed  to  seize  occasions 
that  in  his  younger  days  he  would  have  turned  to 
golden  account.  His  wife  saw  in  him  a  daunted 
look  that  made  her  heart  ache  for  him. 

One  result  of  his  friendly  relations  with  the  "West 
Virginia  people  was  that  Corey  went  in  with  them, 
and  the  fact  that  he  did  so  solely  upon  Lapham's 
advice,  and  by  means  of  his  recommendation,  was 
perhaps  the  Colonel's  proudest  consolation.  Corey 
knew  the  business  thoroughly,  and  after  half  a 
year  at  Kanawha  Falls  and  in  the  office  at  New 
York,  he  went  out  to  Mexico  and  Central  Ame 
rica,  to  see  what  could  be  done  for  them  upon  the 


500  THE  RISE  OF 

ground  which  he  had  theoretically  studied  with 
Lapham. 

Before  he  went  he  came  up  to  Vermont,  and 
urged  Penelope  to  go  with  him.  He  was  to  be 
first  in  the  city  of  Mexico,  and  if  his  mission  was 
successful  he  was  to  be  kept  there  and  in  South 
America  several  years,  watching  the  new  railroad 
enterprises  and  the  development  of  mechanical  agri 
culture  and  whatever  other  undertakings  offered  an 
opening  for  the  introduction  of  the  paint.  They 
were  all  young  men  together,  and  Corey,  who  had 
put  his  money  into  the  company,  had  a  proprietary 
interest  in  the  success  which  they  were  eager  to 
achieve. 

"  There 's  no  more  reason  now  and  no  less  than 
ever  there  was,"  mused  Penelope,  in  counsel  with 
her  mother,  "  why  I  should  say  Yes,  or  why  I  should 
say  No.  Everything  else  changes,  but  this  is  just 
where  it  was  a  year  ago.  It  don't  go  backward, 
and  it  don't  go  forward.  Mother,  I  believe  I  shall 
take  the  bit  in  my  teeth — if  anybody  will  put  it 
there !" 

"It  isn't  the  same  as  it  was,"  suggested  her 
mother.  "  You  can  see  that  Irene 's  all  over  it." 

"That's  no  credit  to  me,"  said  Penelope.  "I 
ought  to  be  just  as  much  ashamed  as  ever." 

"  You  no  need  ever  to  be  ashamed." 

"  That 's  true,  too,"  said  the  girl.  "  And  I  can 
sneak  off  to  Mexico  with  a  good  conscience  if  I 
could  make  up  my  mind  to  it."  She  laughed. 
"Well,  if  I  could  be  sentenced  to  be  married,  or 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  501 

somebody  would  up  and  forbid  the  banns  !  /  don't 
know  what  to  do  about  it." 

Her  mother  left  her  to  carry  her  hesitation  back 
to  Corey,  and  she  said  now  they  had  better  go  all 
over  it  and  try  to  reason  it  out.  "  And  I  hope  that 
whatever  I  do,  it  won't  be  for  my  own  sake,  but  for 
—others!" 

Corey  said  he  was  sure  of  that,  and  looked  at  her 
with  eyes  of  patient  tenderness. 

"  I  don't  say  it  is  wrong,"  she  proceeded,  rather 
aimlessly,  "  but  I  can't  make  it  seem  right.  I  don't 
know  whether  I  can  make  you  understand,  but  the 
idea  of  being  happy,  when  everybody  else  is  so 
miserable,  is  more  than  I  can  endure.  It  makes  me 
wretched." 

"  Then  perhaps  that 's  your  share  of  the  common 
suffering,"  suggested  Corey,  smiling. 

"  Oh,  you  know  it  isn't !  You  know  it 's  nothing. 
Oh  !  One  of  the  reasons  is  what  I  told  you  once 
before.,  that  as  long  as  father  is  in  trouble  I  can't  let 
you  think  of  me.  Now  that  he  's  lost  everything — 1" 
She  bent  her  eyes  inquiringly  upon  him,  as  if  for  the 
effect  of  this  argument. 

"  I  don't  think  that 's  a  very  good  reason,"  he 
answered  seriously,  but  smiling  still.  "  Do  you 
believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that  I  love  you?" 

"  Why,  I  suppose  I  must,"  she  said,  dropping  he- 
eyes. 

"  Then  why  shouldn't  I  think  all  the  more  of  you 
on  account  of  your  father's  loss  ]  You  didn't  sup 
pose  I  cared  for  you  because  he  was  prosperous  V 


502  THE  RISE  OF 

There  was  a  shade  of  reproach,  ever  so  delicate  and 
gentle,  in  his  smiling  question,  which  she  felt. 

"  No,  I  couldn't  think  such  a  thing  of  you.  I — 

I  don't  know  what  I  meant.  I  meant  that "  She 

could  not  go  on  and  say  that  she  had  felt  herself 
more  worthy  of  him  because  of  her  father's  money ; 
it  would  not  have  been  true ;  yet  there  was  no  other 
explanation.  She  stopped,  and  cast  a  helpless  glance 
at  him. 

He  came  to  her  aid.  "  I  understand  why  you 
shouldn't  wish  me  to  suffer  by  your  father's  misfor 
tunes." 

"  Yes,  that  was  it ;  and  there  is  too  great  a  differ 
ence  every  way.  We  ought  to  look  at  that  again. 
You  mustn't  pretend  that  you  don't  know  it,  for 
that  wouldn't  be  true.  Your  mother  will  never  like 
me,  and  perhaps — perhaps  I  shall  not  like  her." 

"  Well,"  said  Corey,  a  little  daunted,  "  you  won't 
have  to  marry  my  family." 

"  Ah,  that  isn't  the  point ! " 

"I  know  it,"  he  admitted.  "I  won't  pretend 
that  I  don't  see  what  you  mean ;  but  I  'm  sure  that 
all  the  differences  would  disappear  when  you  came 
to  know  my  family  better.  I  'm  not  afraid  but  you 
and  my  mother  will  like  each  other — she  can't  help 
it !"  he  exclaimed,  less  judicially  than  he  had  hitherto 
spoken,  and  he  went  on  to  urge  some  points  of 
doubtful  tenability.  •  "  We  have  our  ways,  and  you 
have  yours ;  and  while  I  don't  say  but  what  you  and 
my  mother  and  sisters  would  be  a  little  strange 
together  at  first,  it  would  soon  wear  off,  on  both 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  503 

sides.  There  can't  be  anything  hopelessly  different 
in  you  all,  and  if  there  were  it  wouldn't  be  any  dif 
ference  to  me." 

"  Do  you  think  it  would  be  pleasant  to  have  you 
on  my  side  against  your  mother  ?" 

"  There  won't  be  any  sides.  Tell  me  just  what  it 
is  you  're  afraid  of." 

"  Afraid  ? " 

"  Thinking  of,  then." 

"  I  don't  know.  It  isn't  anything  they  say  or  do," 
she  explained,  with  her  eyes  intent  on  his.  "  It 's 
what  they  are.  I  couldn't  be  natural  with  them, 
and  if  I  can't  be  natural  with  people,  I  'm  disagree 
able." 

"  Can  you  be  natural  with  me  ? " 

"  Oh,  I  'm  not  afraid  of  you.  I  never  was.  That 
was  the  trouble,  from  the  beginning." 

"  Well,  then,  that's  all  that's  necessary.  And  it 
never  was  the  least  trouble  to  me  ! " 

"  It  made  me  untrue  to  Irene." 

"  You  mustn't  say  that !  You  were  always  true 
to  her." 

"  She  cared  for  you  first." 

"  Well,  but  I  never  cared  for  her  at  all ! "  he  be 
sought  her. 

"  She  thought  you  did." 

"  That  was  nobody's  fault,  and  I  can't  let  you 
make  it  yours.  My  dear " 

"  Wait.  We  must  understand  each  other,"  said 
Penelope,  rising  from  her  seat  to  prevent  an  advance 
he  was  making  from  his ;  "  I  want  you  to  realise  the 


504  THE  RISE  OF 

whole  affair.  Should  you  want  a  girl  who  hadn't  a 
cent  in  the  world,  and  felt  different  in  your  mother's 
company,  and  had  cheated  and  betrayed  her  own 
sister  ? " 

"  I  want  you  ! " 

"  Very  well,  then,  you  can't  have  me.  I  should 
always  despise  myself.  I  ought  to  give  you  up  for 
all  these  reasons.  Yes,  I  must."  She  looked  at  him 
intently,  and  there  was  a  tentative  quality  in  her 
affirmations. 

"  Is  this  your  answer  ? "  he  said.  "  I  must  submit. 
If  I  asked  too  much  of  you,  I  was  wrong.  And — 
good-bye." 

He  held  out  his  hand,  and  she  put  hers  in  it. 
"  You  think  I  'm  capricious  and  fickle  ! "  she  said. 
"  I  can't  help  it — I  don't  know  myself.  I  can't  keep 
to  one  thing  for  half  a  day  at  a  time.  But  it 's  right 
for  us  to  part — yes,  it  must  be.  It  must  be,"  she 
repeated  ;  "  and  I  shall  try  to  remember  that.  Good 
bye  !  I  will  try  to  keep  that  in  my  mind,  and  you 
will  too — you  won't  care,  very  soon!  I  didn't  mean 
that — no ;  I  know  how  true  you  are  ;  but  you  will 
soon  look  at  me  differently  ;  and  see  that  even  if 
there  hadn't  been  this  about  Irene,  I  was  not  the  one 
for  you.  You  do  think  so,  don't  you  ? "  she  pleaded, 
clinging  to  his  hand.  "  I  am  not  at  all  what  they 
would  like — your  family ;  I  felt  that.  I  am  little, 
and  black,  and  homely,  and  they  don't  understand 
my  way  of  talking,  and  now  that  we  Ve  lost  every 
thing —  No,  I  'm  not  fit.  Good-bye.  You  're  quite 
right,  not  to  have  patience  with  me  any  longer.  I  Ve 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  505 

tried  you  enough.  I  ought  to  be  willing  to  marry 
you  against  their  wishes  if  you  want  me  to,  but  I 

can't  make  the  sacrifice — I  'm  too  selfish  for  that •" 

All  at  once  she  flung  herself  on  his  breast  "  I  can't 
even  give  you  up  !  I  shall  never  dare  look  any  one 
in  the  face  again.  Go,  go  !  But  take  me  with  you  ! 
I  tried  to  do  without  you  !  I  gave  it  a  fair  trial,  and 
it  was  a  dead  failure.  0  poor  Irene  !  How  could 
she  give  you  up  ? " 

Corey  went  back  to  Boston  immediately,  and  left 
Penelope,  as  he  must,  to  tell  her  sister  that  they  were 
to  be  married.  She  was  spared  from  the  first  advance 
toward  this  by  an  accident  or  a  misunderstanding. 
Irene  came  straight  to  her  after  Corey  was  gone, 
and  demanded,  "  Penelope  Lapham,  have  you  been 
such  a  ninny  as  to  send  that  man  away  on  my  ac 
count  1 " 

Penelope  recoiled  from  this  terrible  courage  ;  she 
did  not  answer  directly,  and  Irene  went  on,  "  Because 
if  you  did,  I  '11  thank  you  to  bring  him  back  again. 
I  'm  not  going  to  have  him  thinking  that  I  'm  dying 
for  a  man  that  never  cared  for  me.  It 's  insulting, 
and  I  'm  not  going  to  stand  it.  Now,  you  just  send 
for  him  ! " 

"  Oh,  I  will,  'Eene,"  gasped  Penelope.  And  then 
she  added,  shamed  out  of  her  prevarication  by 
Irene's  haughty  magnanimity,  "  I  have.  That  is — 
he 's  coming  back " 

Irene  looked  at  her  a  moment,  and  then,  whatever 
thought  was  in  her  mind,  said  fiercely,  "  Well  !  "  and 
left  her  to  her  dismay — her  dismay  and  her  relief, 


506  THE  RISE  OF 

for  they  both  knew  that  this  was  the  last  time  they 
should  ever  speak  of  that  again. 

The  marriage  came  after  so  much  sorrow  and 
trouble,  and  the  fact  was  received  with  so  much  mis 
giving  for  the  past  and  future,  that  it  brought  Lap- 
ham  none  of  the  triumph  in  which  he  had  once 
exulted  at  the  thought  of  an  alliance  with  the 
Coreys.  Adversity  had  so  far  been  his  friend  that  it 
had  taken  from  him  all  hope  of  the  social  success  for 
which  people  crawl  and  truckle,  and  restored  him, 
through  failure  and  doubt  and  heartache,  the  man 
hood  which  his  prosperity  had  so  nearly  stolen  from 
him.  Neither  he  nor  his  wife  thought  now  that  their 
daughter  was  marrying  a  Corey  ;  they  thought  only 
that  she  was  giving  herself  to  the  man  who  loved 
her,  and  their  acquiescence  was  sobered  still  further 
by  the  presence  of  Irene.  Their  hearts  were  far 
more  with  her. 

Again  and  again  Mrs.  Lapham  said  she  did  not 
see  how  she  could  go  through  it.  "  I  can't  make  it 
seem  right,"  she  said. 

"  It  is  right,"  steadily  answered  the  Colonel. 

"  Yes,  I  know.     But  it  don't  seem  so." 

It  would  be  easy  to  point  out  traits  in  Penelope's 
character  which  finally  reconciled  all  her  husband's 
family  and  endeared  her  to  them.  These  things 
continually  happen  in  novels  ;  and  the  Coreys,  as 
they  had  always  promised  themselves  to  do,  made 
the  best,  and  not  the  worst  of  Tom's  marriage. 

They  were  people  who  could  value  Lapham's  be- 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  507 

haviour  as  Tom  reported  it  to  them.  They  were 
proud  of  him,  and  Bromfield  Corey,  who  found  a 
delicate,  aesthetic  pleasure  in  the  heroism  with  which 
Lapham  had  withstood  Rogers  and  his  temptations 
— something  finely  dramatic  and  unconsciously  effec 
tive, — wrote  him  a  letter  which  would  once  have 
flattered  the  rough  soul  almost  to  ecstasy,  though  now 
he  affected  to  slight  it  in  showing  it.  "  It 's  all  right 
if  it  makes  it  more  comfortable  for  Pen,"  he  said  to 
his  wife. 

But  the  differences  remained  uneffaced,  if  not  un- 
effaceable,  betAveen  the  Coreys  and  Tom  Corey's 
wife.  "If  he  had  only  married  the  Colonel!" 
subtly  suggested  Nanny  Corey. 

There  was  a  brief  season  of  civility  and  forbear 
ance  on  both  sides,  when  he  brought  her  home 
before  starting  for  Mexico,  and  her  father-in-law 
made  a  sympathetic  feint  of  liking  Penelope's  way 
of  talking,  but  it  is  questionable  if  even  he  found  it 
so  delightful  as  her  husband  did.  Lily  Corey  made 
a  little,  ineffectual  sketch  of  her,  which  she  put  by 
with  other  studies  to  finish  up,  sometime,  and  found 
her  rather  picturesque  in  some  ways.  Nanny  got 
on  with  her  better  than  the  rest,  and  saw  possibilities 
for  her  in  the  country  to  which  she  was  going.  "As 
she 's  quite  unformed,  socially,"  she  explained  to  her 
mother,  "  there  is  a  chance  that  she  will  form  her 
self  on  the  Spanish  manner,  if  she  stays  there  long 
enough,  and  that  when  she  comes  back  she  will 
have  the  charm  of,  not  olives,  perhaps,  but  tortillas, 
whatever  they  are  :  something  strange  and  foreign, 


508  THE  RISE  OF 

even  if  it's  borrowed.  I'm  glad  she's  going  to 
Mexico.  At  that  distance  we  can — correspond." 

Her  mother  sighed,  and  said  bravely  that  she  was 
sure  they  all  got  on  very  pleasantly  as  it  was,  and 
that  she  was  perfectly  satisfied  if  Tom  was. 

There  was,  in  fact,  much  truth  in  what  she  said 
of  their  harmony  with  Penelope.  Having  resolved, 
from  the  beginning,  to  make  the  best  of  the  worst, 
it  might  almost  be  said  that  they  were  supported 
and  consoled  in  their  good  intentions  by  a  higher 
power.  This  marriage  had  not,  thanks  to  an  over 
ruling  Providence,  brought  the  succession  of  Lapham 
teas  upon  Bromfield  Carey  which  he  had  dreaded ; 
the  Laphams  were  far  off  in  their  native  fastnesses, 
and  neither  Lily  nor  Nanny  Corey  was  obliged  to 
sacrifice  herself  to  the  conversation  of  Irene ;  they 
were  not  even  called  upon  to  make  a  social  demon 
stration  for  Penelope  at  a  time  when,  most  people 
being  still  out  of  town,  it  would  have  been  so  easy  ; 
she  and  Tom  had  both  begged  that  there  might 
be  nothing  of  that  kind ;  and  though  none  of  the 
Coreys  learned  to  know  her  very  well  in  the  week 
she  spent  with  them,  they  did  not  find  it  hard  to 
get  on  with  her.  There  were  even  moments  when 
Nanny  Corey,  like  her  father,  had  glimpses  of  what 
Tom  had  called  her  humour,  but  it  was  perhaps  too 
unlike  their  own  to  be  easily  recognisable. 

Whether  Penelope,  on  her  side,  found  it  more 
difficult  to  harmonise,  I  cannot  say.  She  had  much 
more  of  the  harmonising  to  do,  since  they  were  four 
to  one;  but  then  she  had  gone  through  so  much 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  509 

greater  trials  before.  When  the  door  of  their 
carriage  closed  and  it  drove  off  with  her  and  her 
husband  to  the  station,  she  fetched  a  long  sigh. 

"  What  is  it  ? "  asked  Corey,  who  ought  to  have 
known  better. 

"  Oh,  nothing.  I  don't  think  I  shall  feel  strange 
amongst  the  Mexicans  now." 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  puzzled  smile,  which 
grew  a  little  graver,  and  then  he  put  his  arm  round 
her  and  drew  her  closer  to  him.  This  made  her 
cry  on  his  shoulder.  "  I  only  meant  that  I  should 
have  you  all  to  myself."  There  is  no  proof  that  she 
meant  more,  but  it  is  certain  that  our  manners  and 
customs  go  for  more  in  life  than  our  qualities.  The 
price  that  we  pay  for  civilisation  is  the  fine  yet  im 
passable  differentiation  of  these.  Perhaps  we  pay 
too  much  ;  but  it  will  not  be  possible  to  persuade 
those  who  have  the  difference  in  their  favour  that 
this  is  so.  They  may  be  right ;  and  at  any  rate,  the 
blank  misgiving,  the  recurring  sense  of  disappoint 
ment  to  which  the  young  people's  departure  left  the 
Coreys  is  to  be  considered.  That  was  the  end  of 
their  son  and  brother  for  them  ;  they  felt  that ;  and 
they  were  not  mean  or  unamiable  people. 

He  remained  three  years  away.  Some  changes 
took  place  in  that  time.  One  of  these  was  the  pur 
chase  by  the  Kanawha  Falls  Company  of  the  mines 
and  works  at  Lapham.  The  transfer  relieved  Lap- 
ham  of  the  load  of  debt  which  he  was  still  labouring 
under,  and  gave  him  an  interest  in  the  vaster  enter 
prise  of  the  younger  men,  which  he  had  once  vainly 


510  THE  RISE  OF 

hoped  to  grasp  all  in  his  own  hand.  He  began  to 
tell  of  this  coincidence  as  something  very  striking ; 
and  pushing  on  more  actively  the  special  branch  of 
the  business  left  to  him,  he  bragged,  quite  in  his  old 
way,  of  its  enormous  extension.  His  son-in-law,  he 
said,  was  pushing  it  in  Mexico  and  Central  America  : 
an  idea  that  they  had  originally  had  in  common. 
Well,  young  blood  was  what  was  wanted  in  a  thing 
of  that  kind.  Now,  those  fellows  out  in  West 
Virginia  :  all  young,  and  a  perfect  team  ! 

For  himself,  he  owned  that  he  had  made  mis 
takes  ;  he  could  see  just  where  the  mistakes  were — 
put  his  finger  right  on  them.  But  one  thing  he 
could  say :  he  had  been  no  man's  enemy  but  his 
own ;  every  dollar,  every  cent  had  gone  to  pay  his 
debts  ;  he  had  come  out  with  clean  hands.  He  said 
all  this,  and  much  more,  to  Mr.  Sewell  the  summer 
after  he  sold  out,  when  the  minister  and  his  wife 
stopped  at  Lapham  on  their  way  across  from  the 
White  Mountains  to  Lake  Champlain ;  Lapham  had 
found  them  on  the  cars,  and  pressed  them  to  stop 
off. 

There  were  times  when  Mrs.  Lapham  had  as  great 
pride  in  the  clean-handedness  with  which  Lapham 
had  come  out  as  he  had  himself,  but  her  satisfaction 
was  not  so  constant.  At  those  times,  knowing  the 
temptations  he  had  resisted,  she  thought  him  the 
noblest  and  grandest  of  men ;  but  no  woman  could 
endure  to  live  in  the  same  house  with  a  perfect 
hero,  and  there  were  other  times  when  she  reminded 
him  that  if  he  had  kept  his  word  to  her  about 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  511 

speculating  in  stocks,  and  had  looked  after  the  in 
surance  of  his  property  half  as  carefully  as  he  had 
looked  after  a  couple  of  worthless  women  who  had 
no  earthly  claim  on  him,  they  would  not  he  where 
they  were  now.  He  humbly  admitted  it  all,  and 
left  her  to  think  of  Rogers  herself.  She  did  not 
fail  to  do  so,  and  the  thought  did  not  fail  to  restore 
him  to  her  tenderness  again. 

I  do  not  know  how  it  is  that  clergymen  and  phy 
sicians  keep  from  telling  their  wives  the  secrets 
confided  to  them ;  perhaps  they  can  trust  their 
wives  to  find  them  out  for  themselves  whenever 
they  wish.  Sewell  had  laid  before  his  wife  the 
case  of  the  Laphams  after  they  came  to  consult 
with  him  about  Corey's  proposal  to  Penelope,  for 
he  wished  to  be  confirmed  in  his  belief  that  he  had 
advised  them  soundly ;  but  he  had  not  given  her 
their  names,  and  he  had  not  known  Corey's  him 
self.  Now  he  had  no  compunctions  in  talking  the 
affair  over  with  her  without  the  veil  of  ignorance 
which  she  had  hitherto  assumed,  for  she  declared 
that  as  soon  as  she  heard  of  Corey's  engagement 
to  Penelope,  the  whole  thing  had  flashed  upon  her. 
"And  that  night  at  dinner  I  could  have  told  the 
child  that  he  was  in  love  with  her  sister  by  the  way 
he  talked  about  her ;  I  heard  him ;  and  if  she  had 
not  been  so  blindly  in  love  with  him  herself,  she 
would  have  known  it  too.  I  must  say,  I  can't  help 
feeling  a  sort  of  contempt  for  her  sister." 

"Oh,  but  you  must  not !"  cried  SewelL     "That 


512  THE  RISE  OF 

is  wrong,  cruelly  wrong.  I  'm  sure  that  s  out  of 
your  novel-reading,  my  dear,  and  not  out  of  your 
heart.  Come  !  It  grieves  me  to  hear  you  say  such 
a  thing  as  that." 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  this  pretty  thing  has  got  over  it 
— how  much  character  she  has  got ! — and  I  suppose 
she  11  see  somebody  else." 

Sewell  had  to  content  himself  with  this  partial 
concession.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  unless  it  was  the 
young  West  Virginian  who  had  come  on  to  arrange 
the  purchase  of  the  Works,  Irene  had  not  yet  seen 
any  one,  and  whether  there  was  ever  anything  be 
tween  them  is  a  fact  that  would  need  a  separate  in 
quiry.  It  is  certain  that  at  the  end  of  five  years 
after  the  disappointment  which  she  met  so  bravely, 
she  was  still  unmarried.  But  she  was  even  then 
still  very  young,  and  her  life  at  Lapham  had  been 
varied  by  visits  to  the  West.  It  had  also  been 
varied  by  an  invitation,  made  with  the  politest  re 
solution  by  Mrs.  Corey,  to  visit  in  Boston,  which  the 
girl  was  equal  to  refusing  in  the  same  spirit. 

Sewell  was  intensely  interested  in  the  moral  spec 
tacle  which  Lapham  presented  under  his  changed 
conditions.  The  Colonel,  who  was  more  the  Colonel 
in  those  hills  than  he  could  ever  have  been  on  the 
Back  Bay,  kept  him  and  Mrs.  Sewell  over  night  at 
his  house ;  and  he  showed  the  minister  minutely 
round  the  Works  and  drove  him  all  over  his  farm. 
For  this  expedition  he  employed  a  lively  colt  which 
had  not  yet  come  of  age,  and  an  open  buggy  long 
past  its  prime,  and  was  no  more  ashamed  of  his 


SILAS  LAPHAM.  513 

turnout  than  of  the  finest  he  had  ever  driven  on  the 
Milldam.  He  was  rather  shabby  and  slovenly  in 
dress,  and  he  had  fallen  unkempt,  after  the  country 
fashion,  as  to  his  hair  and  beard  and  boots.  The 
house  was  plain,  and  was  furnished  with  the  simpler 
moveables  out  of  the  house  in  Nankeen  Square. 
There  were  certainly  all  the  necessaries,  but  no 
luxuries,  unless  the  statues  of  Prayer  and  Faith 
might  be  so  considered.  The  Laphams  now  burned 
kerosene,  of  course,  and  they  had  no  furnace  in  the 
winter;  these  were  the  only  hardships  the  Colonel 
complained  of;  but  he  said  that  as  scon  as  the 
company  got  to  paying  dividends  again, — he  was 
evidently  proud  of  the  outlays  that  for  the  present 
prevented  this, — he  should  put  in  steam  heat  and 
naphtha-gas.  He  spoke  freely  of  his  failure,  and 
with  a  confidence  that  seemed  inspired  by  his  former 
trust  in  Sewell,  whom,  indeed,  he  treated  like  an 
intimate  friend,  rather  than  an  acquaintance  of  two 
or  three  meetings.  He  went  back  to  his  first  con 
nection  with  Rogers,  and  he  put  before  Sewell 
hypothetically  his  own  conclusions  in  regard  to  the 
matter. 

"  Sometimes,"  he  said,  "  I  get  to  thinking  it  all 
over,  and  it  seems  to  me  I  done  wrong  about  Rogers 
in  the  first  place ;  that  the  whole  trouble  came  from 
that.  It  was  just  like  starting  a  row  of  bricks.  I 
tried  to  catch  up  and  stop  'em  from  going,  but  they 
all  tumbled,  one  after  another.  It  wan't  in  the 
nature  of  things  that  they  could  be  stopped  till  the 
last  brick  went.  I  don't  talk  much  with  my  wife, 
2K 


514  THE  RISE  OF 

any  more  about  it ;  but  I  should  like  to  know  how 
it  strikes  you." 

"  We  can  trace  the  operation  of  evil  in  the  physical 
world,"  replied  the  minister,  "  but  I  'm  more  and 
more  puzzled  about  it  in  the  moral  world.  There 
its  course  is  often  so  very  obscure ;  and  often  it 
seems  to  involve,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  no  penalty 
whatever.  And  in  your  own  case,  as  I  understand, 
you  don't  admit — you  don't  feel  sure — that  you  ever 

actually  did  wrong  this  man " 

"  Well,  no ;  I  don't.  That  is  to  say- 
He  did  not  continue,  and  after  a  while  Sewell 
said,  with  that  subtle  kindness  of  his,  "  I  should  be 
inclined  to  think — nothing  can  be  thrown  quite 
away ;  and  it  can't  be  that  our  sins  only  weaken  us 
— that  your  fear  of  having  possibly  behaved  selfishly 
toward  this  man  kept  you  on  your  guard,  and 
strengthened  you  when  you  were  brought  face  to 
face  with  a  greater" — he  was  going  to  say  temp 
tation,  but  he  saved  Lapham's  pride,  and  said — 
"  emergency." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ? " 

"I  think  that  there  may  be  truth  in  what  I 
suggest." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  what  it  was,"  said  Lapham  ; 
"  all  I  know  is  that  when  it  came  to  the  point, 
although  I  could  see  that  I  'd  got  to  go  under  unless 
I  did  it — that  I  couldn't  sell  out  to  those  English 
men,  and  I  couldn't  let  that  man  put  his  money  into 
my  business  without  I  told  him  just  how  things 
stood." 


SILAS  LAPIIAM.  515 

As  Sewell  afterwards  told  his  wife,  he  could  see 
that  the  loss  of  his  fortune  had  been  a  terrible  trial 
to  Lapham,  just  because  his  prosperity  had  been  so 
gross  and  palpable  ;  and  he  had  now  a  burning 
desire  to  know  exactly  how,  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart,  Lapham  still  felt.  "  And  do  you  ever  have 
any  regrets  ? "  he  delicately  inquired  of  him. 

"  About  what  I  done  1  Well,  it  don't  always 
seem  as  if  I  done  it,"  replied  Lapham.  "  Seems 
sometimes  as  if  it  was  a  hole  opened  for  me,  and  I 
crept  out  of  it.  I  don't  know,"  he  added  thought 
fully,  biting  the  corner  of  his  stiff  moustache.  "  I 
don't  know  as  I  should  always  say  it  paid ;  but  if  I 
done  it,  and  the  thing  was  to  do  over  again,  right  in 
the  same  way,  I  guess  I  should  have  to  do  it." 


THE  END. 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 

DATE  DUE 


Cl  39 


UCSD  Libr. 


